After a few days of inadvertent leaks, Hulu Plus is finally official on the TiVo Premiere.
As regulars know, I’m a Hulu Plus subscriber ($8/month) and this is a welcome platform option (on input one). While EngadgetHD takes issue with TiVo actually delivering Hulu’s interface, I’m happy to see it there. As it indicates someone other than TiVo will be maintaining the app and hopefully keeping it current. In fact, TiVo tells me it’s rendered in Flash… like their very own HDUI (although Hulu Plus can also be launched from the SDUI). It looks sharp. Just like Hulu Plus on every other platform. And, in limited testing, I didn’t notice the prior Roku overscan issues when playing back 720p video.
Having said that, all is not perfect. Hulu Plus shows aren’t yet baked into TiVo’s universal search and there are some strange remote/playback characteristics – stay away from the instant replay button if you have as little patience as I, the Zoom/Aspect button does nothing of the sort, and TiVo’s iPad app backspace key doesn’t seem to work.
New TiVo Premiere owners are entitled to a free six months of Hulu Plus service and existing subscribers will be comped four weeks, so take it for a spin and let us know what you think.