There is a lot to like about the internet tv services provided by Hulu’s new Hulu Plus, especially after being compared to the more traditianal ways of watching TV shows or movies at home.

Instead of being of only being able to watch whats on TV at a given moment, or what you can watch from the local video shop or what you have remembered to record on your DVR, you can now choose from a wide range and variety of videos and watch them instantly. And instead of paying big monthly fees for a handful of channels and shows you may never watch, you can pay for your favorite shows on Apple’s iTunes and similar services, pay less than $10 a month to watch a large collection and variety of videos from Netflix, or watch a large collection of advertising-supported videos from YouTube, Hulu and other popular sites for free.

Last month, Hulu became the latest Internet video service to make a move away from the PC, announcing that with the launch of Hulu Plus, a subscription-based service for a wide variety of mobile and living-room-based devices, including Apple’s iPhone and iPad, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, also included is Internet-connected televisions and Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Vizio.

The new service, which costs $10 a month, also offers a much greater variety of videos than Hulu offers for free. Hulu’s free site typically offers only a season or two of older television shows and just five or so episodes of shows that are currently on the air. Hulu Plus, though, offers the entire runs of shows such as “Arrested Development” and all the episodes aired thus far of shows such as “The Office.”

At the moment the range of devices that can access Hulu Plus is quite limited. I was not able to check the service on my TV because it does not connected to the Internet and Hulu Plus is not yet available on any of the Internet connected game consoles or set top boxes that I can connect to my TV.

You may face similar problems. Hulu Plus isn’t available for smartphones that run Google’s Android or any operating system other than Apple’s iOS. Hulu Plus is supposed to be available on the PlayStation 3 later this month, but it won’t be available on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 until “early” next year.

Hulu Plus is already available on some Samsung TVs and Blu-ray DVD players, but won’t be available for television sets or Blu-ray players from other manufacturers until later this year. And Hulu hasn’t said whether or when the service will be available on digital set-top boxes, such as Roku’s digital video player, TiVo’s DVRs or Apple TV.

The content is also limited. Hulu generally doesn’t have access to shows that run on CBS or the CW network. On the PC that doesn’t matter, because Hulu can link to shows hosted on those networks’ websites. But if you’re not on a PC, you won’t be able to watch “The Amazing Race” or “Gossip Girl” using Hulu Plus. And you can forget about tuning in live sports events or watching shows from premium channels such as HBO.

But perhaps the biggest drawback of Hulu Plus is that even though you’re paying for access to the content, you still have to put up with commercials. That’s also true with cable television, of course, but on the Internet, when you pay to access games, movies and music, they are typically ad free.

And even with cable, if you pay the extra for a PVR, you can fast forward through most of the commercials without having to watch them. So in contrast, Hulu forces its Plus customers to watch its ads.

Hulu Plus has a lot to offer and you may find it quite a bargain compared with your cable subscription. It can not yet replace all that Comcast has to offer and it comes with its own annoyances.

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