Google Video Search Is Here!
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BETA |
It’s up!
Check out the about page. It explains that it indexes closed captioning, as expected, allowing you to search what is being said, not just the titles. Yahoo Video Search only works on titles and metadata, although they (not coincidentally) announced tonight they will be adding search by CC in “the near future” via a relationship with TVEyes. Also, to better compete with Google Video Search, Yahoo Video Search is now a tab on the front page.
Google has only been indexing since December, so selection is very limited. The lack of past video is a glaring problem, with major recent events completely absent from searches. Results are largely from these eight channels:
- ABC (KGO)
- KRON
- PBS
- C-SPAN
- KQED
- NBC (KNTV)
- Fox News
- C-SPAN2
The results page contains thumbnail images of the broadcast, as well as a snippet from the transcript. When you click on a result, you get a special page with the closed captioning transcript as well as a lot of extra information. You can find out the next time the show is airing in your area (set your zip code in the preferences) and search for more instances of that show. The captioning transcript is divided up into intervals, to give you a general idea of pacing. Also, if the video is available, you should be able to watch it. However, I have yet to see an available video, so there is no way to know how, or if, this will work. The help page says:
Can I play the videos that Google Video finds?
Not yet, but stay tuned…
Acknowledging the biggest problem with closed captioning, it says that “Closed captioning isn’t always accurate and errors can occur during the transmission”. I notice this all the time while watching TV, since I keep the captioning on for convinience sake. Captioning of news programs is the worst, especially when live, so I’m curious if Google has any way to fix this in the future.
Results:
Preview:
Search limiters currently include title: (for program title) and channel: (for channel, duh).
You want some sad news for Google lovers? For the moment, Yahoo Video Search is way better. Google has no watchable videos, and no video older than seven weeks ago. Google may have more promise with searchable text transcripts, but that just means a great infrastructure with no product to deliver. Google Video Search has nothing to search for. Yahoo’s has lots to find, although its a little harder to find stuff. If Google starts cataloguingold TV shows, going way back years, even decades, it’ll have a great product. For now, a garbled transcript of last week’s Inside Edition doesn’t offer much for me. Google Video Search has great promise. Yahoo Video Search has much better utility. Maybe after a while, that’ll change.
hey super critic…
Yahoo videos and Google videos are entirely two different things. Yahoo videos, a remake of the the altavista video search, just searches for mpg, avi etc.. If you want to do that in google, just type in ‘filetype:mpg Inside Google has to think hard’ and bingo, Yahoo video search..
Google video search, on the other hand, does it for t.v. shows..
You are making the sports reporters proud.. Come on Nathan, you can do much better..
*Ashamedfully urs*
Comment by z | January 25, 2005
Yes, of course Google Video Search and Yahoo Video Search are too very different search engines. My point was that Google’s has far less usefulness than Yahoo’s does.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | January 25, 2005
Isn’t this Google’s style though? They look for long term solutions that may not be completely implementable as products in the short-term. But with time they get better. Without revising Yahoo search, it will never offer more functionality. Google on the other hand has built in growth mechanisms. Sure, it may not be much today, but we all can see the potential.
Comment by Nicholas | January 25, 2005
Without revising Google’s, it won’t be any more viable either. Also, when did Google decide that indexing all the web content wasn’t important. If I want to find a video for download, I now know, 100%, that I go to Yahoo or Blinkx, because Google is apparently never going to have a video search engine.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | January 25, 2005
Poster #1: If I search video.yahoo.com for ‘tsunami’, I get 290 hits. If I seach regular Google for ‘filetype:mpg tsunami’ it returns 0 hits. If I search for ‘tsunami’ at video.google.com, I get 1204 still thumbnails relating to tsunami videos. Wheeeee?
Comment by Stu | January 25, 2005
It doesn’t really have to change. They’ve already conceded that video is coming (that’s not a change just further development). And the index is expected to grow, that’s the nature of indexes, they slowly get larger. But the technology itself doesn’t really have to change it only has to work better. Yahoo on the other hand had to throw together some kind off closed captioning search because it was not a part of there video search to begin with. They weren’t really trying to solve a problem, just push a product. It maybe better in the short term but will last the test of time?
Comment by Nicholas | January 25, 2005
Nathan, I agree. Google has no video. How do you do a video search with no video? It doesn’t make any sense. I think Google just needed to get something out because the competition was mounting. Yahoo has a lot of movie trailers but Blinkx is right on. They are young yet, but their product is more of what I expected from Google.
Comment by cllm | February 1, 2005
[…] imaginemos un futuro donde podamos buscar no sólo documentos de texto, e imágenes, sino vídeos (ya sé que el enlace lleva al servicio de G […]
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