Comcast launched Fancast at CES today. The site, which we first mentioned in April, serves as both a media guide for TV shows and movies, as well as a destination to watch full length and preview clips of professional content.
Fancast partnered with Hulu to offer content from NBC and Fox, in addition to content from CBS, MTV, and BET. If Fancast doesn’t stream the full-length content you are looking for, it will help you look for that content on television, on DVD, in theaters, or even elsewhere on the web (iTunes, Amazon, Blockbuster, or Netflix). While this will be helpful for people who genuinely want to access content in different formats, the TV guide type features are a stopgap for many of us who would like to see everything streamed online.
Other aspects of Fancast make it much like IMDB; you can check out information about casts and crews, review information about past episodes, and look at related photos. Users are also promised the ability to control their DVR online so they can schedule recordings of shows when they are away from home. Furthermore, the service will recommend shows coming up on television that it thinks you might like to see.
According to NewTeeVee, Fancast is part of Comcast’s “Project Infinity” initiative and should in time find itself integrated with set top boxes. Comcast has partnered with TiVo and is negotiating with Time Warner and Cox.