So it’s not news that content providers have asked Boxee to remove Hulu from its software. This has lead people to try to find alternatives in their home media centers to funnel Hulu into their big screens. Enter Understudy.

Understudy is still very much a work in progress, even so, it’s a long way from being an alternative. The one thing that they did get right was the installation process. There isn’t any weird hack you have to do to get Understudy in your Front Row menu. It’s a simple installation. After that, while in Front Row, a new menu option appears called Understudy.

Select Understudy and you’ll have only one option; Manage Feeds. After toying around for a while through what seems to be a really confusing menu system on purpose, I had added my Hulu queue and Netflix Queue to my Front Row. Supposedly you have to be logged in to Hulu and Netflix in Safari in order for all this to work, but regardless, it didn’t. I was able to successfully pull only the “Most Popular Last Month” queue, not my own subscriptions or queue. Of the TV shows I found listed, when selecting one to watch you’re prompted with an option to view in full screen. Whether you choose to do this or not, it doesn’t matter. Front Row will then exit and Safari will be redirected to the appropirate page to view the show. If you chose to view in full screen, Safari becomes full screen, but the TV show does not. Also, if you’re using Front Row in your secondary display, like I am, it renders this piece of software utterly useless, and the Safari browser is opened on your main display, not on your big screen. The same goes for Hulu and Netflix. Save yourself the headache. Anyone know other alternatives?

Related Posts
1. Boxee Removes Hulu from it’s Software
2. Boxee + Front Row = Utopia
3. My life is over: Netflix now on Boxee! (Warning)
4. My media setup with Boxee and Front Row
5. Hulu On Your Desktop, Boxee Style

Tags: Boxee, Front Row, Hulu, Netflix, OS X