NBC Universal and News Corporation have launched their joint project, the Hulu online video service. Hulu is now available in private beta phase at www.hulu.com. The two rivals in 20th century media joined forces to compete with YouTube, Google's leading online video service. All the shows available on Hulu are viewable inside a Web browser and festooned with advertisements.

Episodes will run with two minutes of ads per half-hour that are unskippable and travel with the video whether it is viewed at Hulu.com, a distributor or a personal webpage, Variety reports.

“We’re excited to bring a wide selection of popular content to fans, on-demand and free – from full episodes and clips of hit shows like Heroes, House, The Office, and The Simpsons, to feature films like The Blues Brothers and Sideways,” said Jason Kilar, chief executive officer of Hulu. “The launch with our distribution partners as well as our beta is an important first step in delivering a service that lets people enjoy their favorites, anytime, anywhere.”  

Hulu, in addition to television shows, also has available ten free movies, including “Master and Commander” and “Sideways,” though each will run with commercial breaks. Kilar also made clear that the main difference between Hulu and its competitors (read YouTube) is that it only provides premium, high-quality content. The company wants to become the company matching the largest premium content database with the largest number of online video users.

Hulu has also struck content deals with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony, and Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN network, Comcast, AOL and MySpace will also distribute content from Hulu on their own sites. Quite interestingly, users have the option to "embed" Hulu's clips, programmes or full-length films on blogs and web pages, as well as email them to friends. This basically allows users to legally republish copyrighted content.

A lot of analysts have pointed out that Hulu will require monstrous servers and bandwidth to run if it will have users in the millions. This might add up to huge operating costs.