• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 5, 2007

Looking to enhance its success through programming quality, Hulu is adding high-definition video content through a partnership with Adobe and its new Flash Player 9 technology.

The joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. is now offering an HD Gallery with movie trailers and clips from Universal and Fox studios in high-definition resolution.

The choice of Adobe's Flash Player might seem like a natural one for Hulu were its chief technology officer, Eric Feng, not a recent employee of Microsoft. (Microsoft is attempting to take market share away from Adobe with its own plug-in for playing media files, named Silverlight.)

Feng, however, said he is comfortable with his choice. "There was a lot of investigation choosing the right platform," he said. "Silverlight is a very interesting product, but it's still an early version."

Supporting Feng's reasoning, Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said it would have been unwise to take a risk on Silverlight. "It makes sense they would choose Flash," said McQuivey. "Even though Adobe is more expensive than Silverlight, Hulu wants to be sure viewers get right to viewing and don't have to worry about a new codec."

Other online publishers who use Adobe Flash Player include CBS, NBC, Fox News Digital, PBS, MTV Networks and BBC. The technology also powers the video capabilities of YouTube and MySpace.

In the evolution of online video, quality has so far taken a backseat to scale and accessibility, with YouTube leading the way. Hulu, which launched in late October after months of speculation and blind criticism, is betting that programming quality will increasingly factor into a site's success.

"A few years ago, the biggest draw in online video was convenience," Feng said. "We have a maniacal focus on quality because that's where the competitive focus is now."

Said Forrester's McQuivey: "Quality probably matters more to marketers than viewers right now. No one's going to turn away from a favorite show because of (poor) quality. But over time, they may be more likely to come back more often, confident that the quality is there."

Either way, the fate of Hulu is still highly uncertain, and will be determined over time by consumer adoption and retention rates. The service's destination site is still accessible only by invitation, and is expected to remain so for several more months.

One challenge facing Hulu's backers is the issue of mounting operating costs such as the expense of storing vast libraries of high-quality video on back-end servers.

"Hulu just has to make sure it pays Akamai enough to stream the extra bits without problem," McQuivey said in reference to Hulu's content delivery partner, Akamai Technologies.

Feng said technology is on his side. "It could be cheaper," he said of the costs associated with content storage and delivery. "But technology will continue to drive down those costs."

Microsoft made headway in June when the online video services provider Maven Networks began offering Silverlight as an option to consumers who visit Maven-powered Web sites, including those operated by 20th Century Fox, A&E Television Networks and CBS's CSTV college network.