The first thing I ask about any new Web video service is what it brings to the table that the thousands of existing video sites don't. In Fancast Xfinity TV's case, it's premium (HBO and the like) and subscription-only (Bravo, ESPN, etc.) cable content.

Comcast deserves props for persuading some of its content partners to move their shows to the Web. It probably wasn't an easy sell: Comcast says premium producers such as HBO have less incentive to move their shows and movies online because they are not paid from the commercials scattered throughout the show. Instead Comcast pays HBO handsomely for the content, and then sells it to cable customers on a subscription basis.

Still, after all the hype from Comcast about the new service, I'm surprised at how little subscription-only and premium video--especially movies--is actually available on Fancast Xfinity TV. Only a small subset of the video available on your TV through your cable subscription is also presented on the online service.

Fancast Xfinity TV offers a better selection of TV series than it does movies. You can watch some recent episodes of Comedy Central's The Daily Show (also available at the Comedy Central site) and HBO's Big Love, and you can watch old episodes of The Sopranos until you're blue in the face, but you won't find any episodes of Mad Men or True Blood.

Skimming the movie section in Fancast Xfinity TV, I saw titles like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Airport '77, Dead Man Walking, and To Live and Die in L.A. A Comcast spokesperson pointed out a few other, more current titles like Changeling, The Dark Knight, and Slumdog Millionaire, which are good movies but not the most current. I saw a lot of back-catalog stuff like Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure and Casual Sex? too.

It's apparent that premium-content owners are extremely selective about the stuff they allow to go online. Comcast says that it has no control over this, and that it is entirely up to the content producers which material can be distributed via the Web. It's unclear whether Comcast pays extra--beyond the fees it pays for cable broadcasting rights--to producers like HBO for the right to bring Big Love and other premium shows online.