The deal the two have arrived at is quite straightforward. Veoh gets to expand its TV archive by showcasing Fox and NBC content; Hulu is given a larger audience.
But is this agreement something that might benefit you, the video viewer? In a word, yes.
There are some compromises one needs to make when watching material born of the Hulu project on Veoh. The video quality, for one, is often not as good that it is when consumed right at the source. And the environment in which one plays back available programs is not the most aesthetically pleasing. Hulu is certainly the prime location to view shows originally loaded to Hulu.
That being said, Veoh makes for an acceptable second option. Especially if the first is inaccessible. Which to many eager eyes it is. Still.
What strikes the visitor most when browsing the “new and improved” Veoh is the impressive array of video now presented on its pages. Professionally produced video, in particular. Collectively, few other online services of its kind can match it. Yes, YouTube has its record-setting treasure trove of clips to tout, but all those I Can Has… montages can surely get a exhausting after some time. On occasion, a 20-minute-plus session with 30 Rock or Heroes can be a decent escape from the standard faire.
Also, getting to the point made about video quality, the matter can be taken very basically. If you were to juxtapose Google’s woeful 240-by-340-pixel standard with Veoh’s clearly superior video quality reproduction, it’s obvious which one of the two you would ideally prefer. If nothing else, consider the good you’ll be doing your precious corneas by taking some time to get to know the more visually awarding side of the Web’s media universe. Veoh may not serve billions of bits per second all across the globe, but its premium collection of candy more than makes up for its lack of enormity.