The much ballyhooed, NBC Universal/News Corp. online video collaboration, Hulu, a few hours ago opened its doors for an invite-only private beta. However, if you want a taste of the site right now and aren’t yet a beta tester, you can simply head over to AOL Video where the first Hulu-powered NBC and Fox shows have already started to appear – or check out the embedded player below click on ‘menu’ and find something you want to watch.

Shows such as ‘The Office’, ‘30 Rock’, ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Bionic Woman’, and many others have already been included and you are able to watch full episodes for free provided you watch a quick pre-roll ad, and then another short ad about halfway through. The quality of the videos is decent, but the player itself appears to be limited to a smaller square screen (at least on the AOL Video version). This is disappointing, hopefully the actual Hulu site will allow for double-size if not full-screen playback.

I hate to say it, but on first impression Hulu looks pretty impressive. The key here obviously is the content and with all the hit NBC and Fox shows (as well as some feature films like Sideways), Hulu has it. I very much prefer this over going to NBC’s or Fox’s homepages, and the price of free certainly beats iTunes $1.99 (though as I said, this is worse quality). It would be nice to have all content be available at one place whether that be YouTube or iTunes, but it’s pretty clear that isn’t going to be happening anytime soon, so for now we have to settle for solutions like this. It could be a lot worse (as I thought it could be).

The fact that Hulu can’t immediately be dismissed offhand upon seeing it, means that Apple really needs to get its act together with regards to its plan for the future of video on the iTunes store. When the NBC content is gone they need something to keep people coming back, something along the lines of HD-quality TV shows for the same $1.99 price and the movie subscription service for films. Rumors are already starting to swirl that an iTunes 8 could soon surface with these very updates. Apple has the AppleTV, but they continue to waste it, the time to make a move is now.

Below is an embedded clip from ‘The Office’. You will apparently be able to embed any episode from any show you want as well as make your own clips from those episodes (the pre-roll ads will still play beforehand) – a very solid move, and a nice embed player with very nice video quality (much better than what they are showing on AOL Video) to boot. Are you seeing this Apple?