Comcast debuts Fancast, ‘wideband’ service
Cory Bergman January 7th, 2008
After a few months in beta, Comcast is taking the wraps on Fancast, its online video service. At first glance, it looks similar to Hulu (Comcast-owned ThePlatform is helping power Hulu), with full shows available from NBC, CBS, Fox, Bravo, FX and more. But Fancast also has some nifty additions, like a TiVo-like personalization feature that asks you a few questions and then suggests upcoming shows you might want to watch on your cable system (hmmm, it’s suggesting I watch “The Bad News Bears” tonight on TNT.) And coming soon, you’ll be able to program your DVR via the site. Fancast also plans to add in-depth content on movies and TV shows, a la IMDb, which could be migrated to a set-top box in the future.
Updated: The other big announcement from Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts is “Project Infinity.” The centerpiece is a new high-speed internet service called “wideband” that promises that users can download an entire high-definition movie in four minutes instead of as long as six hours with DSL. Plus, Comcast is planning to offer a huge menu of on-demand films — ultimately 6,000, up from its current 300 — along with 1,000 clips of HDTV video. Here’s the Project Infinity press release and the Fancast release.
1 Comment Add your own
1. discreet_chaos | January 8th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Fancast looks like it has the same line-up as Hulu, but with fewer episodes of indvidual shows and with previously available content from the CBS/Viacom thrown into the mix.
I mean, my wife had never seen any “Mary Tyler Moore”, so we’ve shared a few episodes as a time-killer, while my son and I have been stepping through “Alias Smith and Jones” and “Jack of All Trades” (Bruce Campbell). And, it is little weird that both services would offer these exact same shows. Of course, it may be in the licensing, but you’d think that Comcast would want something different to set their service apart and not just be a place where you can also watch some CBS/Viacom without going to their network websites or maybe loading-up Joost for a title or two.
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