Hulu HD: Shot over YouTube's Bow?

Not long after NBC officially pulled thier content from iTunes, they are enhancing thier Hulu offerings with a small collection of 720p High Definition Material. While the system requirements are a little stingy (internet over 2.4 Mb/s + Adobe Flash Player 9 + Flamingly Fast Computer), the fact that the content is even there is pretty awesome. There was a clip that showed up on Digg not too long ago about how trick YouTube into letting you get a bit of HD content on there and it looked good sans a few glitches (wrong time readout from YouTube, limited file size). The most important thing here is that Hulu has content that people want to watch - assuming the writiers come back, where as YouTube is more of a time killer.

I wonder if we will ever see any kind of hardware solution that converges HD material from NBC etc. Perhaps a set-top version of Joost touting HD content? I would buy it. Throw in a wireless keyboard/mouse, a messenger and a browser then you have a full home invasion of media interaction to capitalize on targeted internet advertising.