It was announced earlier today that Google would be releasing an in-browser video player plug-in, designed seemingly to make Google Video a more interactive experience, instead of one that searches video but returns only text (readable instead of watchable) results.
John Battelle first reported the news of the Google Video Viewer, and since it broke, people have been waiting until Google made their VLC-based video viewer available for download. Well, the wait is over.
Around 12pm EST, Google placed a link on the Google Video homepage inviting visitors to download the open source player. The specs for the recently-launched player download are as follows:
* Fast download (~1 MB)
* Play any video available on Google Video
* Won’t interfere with other video players on your system
Google also invites users to download the player’s source code so they can make alterations or additions if they so choose.
Now that many users have the player installed, reactions to the updated Google Video search have been pouring out of the woodwork. One such reaction by Brad Hill reveals what many are discovering: Google does not separate playable results from their standard closed-caption-based results. Playable videos are indicated as such by a graphical “play” button.
He also feels that Google has made their video search service even more perplexing by not separating the playable videos from the non.
Brad also points out that the playable videos have no other controls accompanying them. There are no options to fast forward, rewind, or save. Users can only stop the video or they can choose to play it in its entirety, nothing else. In fact, when a video is played, it does so through the browser and is integrated within the search results. There are no pop-up windows are individual media players to launch. Another area of is while a video clip is playing, the user’s right-click function does not work, or at least it isn’t supported.
If you try to right-click a video, nothing happens. No alarm “ding” or anything else of the sort. However, if you have any intentions of viewing some of the user submitted movies using Google Video, you will have to install the player. As indicated, the player works with both IE and Firefox. The Google Video Viewer does not support Netscape, however.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
