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Hulu successfully streams President Obama's address to Congress live

Photo: Hulu.com successfully streams President's Obama Address to Congress live

Hulu, a leading online video distributor founded in March 2007 and headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, streamed President Obama's first Address to Congress live at 9/6 p.m. EST/PST on February 24, 2009. The stream was slightly over one hour and was provided by Fox News. Both the visual and audio quality of the live stream were top notched and absolutely competed with regular  television quality. However I did experience a single quick hiccup that displayed a black screen instead of the live video and a message that said, "Sorry, this video is currently unavailable.  We apologize for any inconvenience." I am happy to report that after I refreshed my Google  Chrome browser the video once again displayed a smooth moving, crisp sounding live video stream. One could even claim that the error message was a shortcoming of Google's browser as I did have the live video streaming in another browser tab just fine at the same time. Regardless of what caused the blip it was quickly resolved. I was very impressed with the quality of the live video stream provided by Hulu and it was an enjoyable experience that will be repeated.

 

The natural order of the Internet creates an intense competition between similar online service providers, websites and corporations that spans the smallest of details including content load times, instant communication opportunities and real-time information sharing. Hulu was not the only Internet company offering live streaming coverage of President Obama's speech. Notably Facebook was working in tandem with CNN to also provide live video streaming of President Obama's Address to Congress. This is a service that I utilized in January 2009 to listen to President Obama's Inaugural Address. 

 

 

A high-level observation of the two competing services look similar, however, a more detailed analysis uncovers a couple of interesting facts. Namely Facebook offers a real-time communication feature that Hulu doesn't offer and does not seem to be moving towards it in the near future. Facebook allows you to watch the live streaming video while commenting between  Facebook members currently watching the same streaming video or only with your direct group of Facebook friends. This is a unique and powerful communication feature that works seamlessly and based on the rapid number of comments posted many people clearly find this feature appealing. 

 

However if you are looking to only watch the President's speech and do so with an experience close to, if not better than, regular television quality then in my opinion Hulu is the place to do so. While watching President Obama's speech on both Hulu.com and CNN.com at the same time I was watching the speech on television I noticed that Hulu's latency was hardly noticeable but the "live streaming" coverage from CNN (in partnership with Facebook) had a latency of roughly 5-8 seconds behind both Hulu and the live television coverage. Less latency may be a mute point while watching the President's speech on the Internet but it gives Hulu a definite technology and quality advantage over the live video streaming service offered by CNN and Facebook.