After spending some time collecting videos for archiving and indexing, Google will now let you play some of them online.
Google has been collecting televised content for its Video database. Using closed captioning feeds and text descriptions, Google can sift through the videos it has collected and deliver results to search queries from them.
Users can search by topic, or use Google’s advanced capabilities to search by a show’s title, channel, or other identifying characteristics. Search results will show some still images from the video as well as a snippet of transcript text when available.
Google’s video contributors include Fox News, CNN, Greenpeace, and The Weather Channel, among others. They have also gathered content from their local television stations in the San Francisco area.
Visitors to the site are offered the chance to download and install the Google Video Viewer. When a video is available for playback, a small triangle “play” icon will appear next to the search result. Clicking the icon will launch the Viewer and play the video.
Users can even find out if a show will be broadcast in their area by updating their zip code, or by clicking Edit Location in the About This Show side panel.
Google Video users will likely see problems with the text of a show in the search results. Since the text is grabbed from closed captioning feeds, the accuracy of the spelling depends on the person who did the transcription for the closed captioning.
One example of this appears in a sample results page Google displays on its Video Preview page. The phrase “psychologically and morally” became “psychological and Morley” instead.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
