Can you select your video quality? There might be a choice. Hulu offers 288, 360, and 480p. The more bandwidth you have, the higher the p setting you can choose. But most of it depends on your processor speed and video card. I have a pretty good video card, but my son’s computer has a 5 (yes, 5) core processor, and a truly screaming video card. Also we have FiOS. You may end up going to your neighborhood pub.
I was using my 64-bit laptop with 4 GB RAM and Core i5 CPU. NBC gave some ability to ajust quality, but I suspect they're trying to protect their local affiliates. I couldn't find info about what resolution was displayed. It seem to look best when it was played in a window but not maximized to the whole screen.