Hulu Media Player makes Hulu a bit more TV-like

Hulu may have an amazing selection of videos from Fox and NBC available for streaming on the web. But there are at least two problems with the service right now:

1. Hulu is in private beta, meaning you can only access videos if you have an account or if someone's been kind enough to embed the video player on their site.
2. You have to search through videos using a mouse and keyboard as if you were looking up directions, not using an on-screen program guide like you would with a TV.

Hulu Media Player attempts to deal with both of those problems. Paul Yanez, the guy who brought us a browser-based Joost clone, plus an Apple-TV inspired video player for all sorts of web video content.

Hulu Media Player is still a little rough around the edges. For example, we found that we would occasionally click on one episode of a TV show only to have a different one start playing. And once you're watching a video, there's no way to go back to the list of episodes for that particular TV show. Instead, you have to click the "show guide" button which takes you back to the main menu. And it'd be nice if you could control the player using your keyboard instead of a mouse. But it's still a pretty neat twist on Hulu.

While you don't need a Hulu beta account to access Hulu Media Player, only a small portion of the Hulu library is available for viewing right now.

Tags: flash, hulu, hulu-media-player, movies, paul-yanez, tv, tweet-this, yanez