Google Video
Encyclopedia
Google Videos is a video search engine, and formerly a free video sharing website, from Google Inc. Before removing user-uploaded content, the service allowed selected videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provided the necessary HTML
code alongside the media, similar to YouTube
. This allowed for websites to host large amounts of video remotely without running into bandwidth or storage capacity issues.
The service was launched on January 25, 2005. On October 9, 2006, Google bought former competitor YouTube. Google announced on June 13, 2007 that the Google Videos search results would begin to include videos discovered by their search crawlers on other hosting services, in YouTube and user uploads. Search result links now open a frameset with a Google Videos header at the top, and the original player page below it, similar to the way the Google Images search results are presented. In 2009, Google discontinued the ability to upload videos to Google' s web servers.
On April 15, 2011, Google announced via email that after April 29 they would no longer allow playback of content hosted on their service, but reversed the decision one week later in lieu of greater support for migration to Youtube.
, and movie trailers, the service also aims to distribute commercial professional media, such as televised content and movies.
A number of educational discourses by Google employees have been recorded and made available for viewing via Google Videos. The lectures have been done mainly at the employees' former universities. The topics cover Google technologies and software engineering but also include other pioneering efforts by major players in the software engineering field.
On January 6, 2009 the Google Video Store was launched, which allowed paid downloads through Google Videos. The service launched with independent films Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks
, and Waterborne
, as well as content from media partners CBS
, the NBA, The Charlie Rose Show, and Sony BMG.Initially, the content of a number of broadcasting companies (such as ABC
, NBC
, CNN
) was available as free streaming content or stills with closed captioning. In addition, the U.S. National Archive
used Google Videos to make historic films available online, but this project was later discontinued.
Google Videos also searches other non-affiliated video sites from web crawls. Sites searched by Google Videos in addition to their own videos and YouTube include GoFish
, ExposureRoom, Vimeo, Myspace, Biku, and Yahoo! Video. It appears that Google Videos is moving away from an online video archive and toward a search engine for videos, similar to their web and image searches.
As of August 2007, the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program ended. Users who previously purchased a video from Google Videos were no longer able to view them. Credits for users were made available as values for Google Checkout
and were valid for 60 days.
, Mac OS X
and Linux
. Major producers with a thousand or more hours of video can apply for Google's Premium Program, which continues to allow for the uploading of videos.
While the Video Uploader application was available as three separate downloads, the Linux
version was written in Java
, a cross-platform
programming language, and would therefore also work on other operating systems without modifications, providing that the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed. This Java executable (.jar) file was a standalone application that did not require installation. Consequently, it could be run from removable media such as USB flash drive
s, CD-ROM
s, or network storage. This allowed users to upload video even if the computer terminal on which they were working would not allow them to install programs, such as a public library computer.
Uploaded videos were saved as a .gvi files under the "Google Videos" folder in "My Videos" and reports of the video(s) details were logged and stored in the user account. The report sorted and listed the number of times that each of the user's videos had been viewed and downloaded within a specific time frame. These ranged from the previous day, week, month or the entire time the videos have been there. Totals were calculated and displayed and the information could be downloaded into a spreadsheet format or printed out.
.
Flash Video file which can be viewed in any Flash
-enabled browser.
Permalinks to a certain point in a video are also possible, in the format of
containing a timestamp).
s the flash file while it plays, and it can be retrieved from the browser cache once it has fully played. There are also several tools and browser extensions to download the file. It can be then viewed in video players that can handle flash, for example VLC media player
, Media Player Classic
(with ffdshow
installed), MPlayer
or Wimpy
.
and Mac OS X
. The Google Video Player plays back files in Google's own Google Video File (.gvi) media format and supported playlists in "Google Video Pointer" (.gvp) format. When users downloaded to their computers, the resulting file used to be a small .gvp (pointer) file rather than a .gvi file. When run, the .gvp file would download a .gvi (movie) file to the user's default directory.
As of August 17, 2007, Google Video Player has been discontinued and is no longer available for download from the Google Videos website. The option to download videos in GVI format has also been removed, the only format available being iPod/PSP (MP4 format).
While early versions of Google's in-browser video player code were based on the open source VLC Media Player
, the last version of Google Video Player was not based on VLC, according to its readme file. However, it did include the OpenSSL
cryptographic
toolkit and some libraries from the Qt
widget
toolkit.
(.avi) files that have an extra list containing the FourCC
"goog" immediately following the header. The list can be removed with a hex editor to avoid playback issues with various video players. The video is encoded in MPEG-4 ASP
alongside an MP3 audio stream. MPEG-4
video players can render .gvi Google Video Files without format conversion (after changing the extension from .gvi to .avi, although this method of just renaming the file extension does not work with videos purchased with DRM
to inhibit unauthorized copying. Among other software VirtualDub
is able to read .gvi files and allows the user to convert them into different formats of choice. There are also privately developed software solutions, such as GVideo Fix, that can convert them to .avi format without recompression. MEncoder
with "-oac copy -ovc copy" as parameters also suffices.
(.avi) and MPEG-4
(.mp4) video files. Not all formats are available through the website's interface, however, depending on the user's operating system.
Where available, Google's "save as" function for Windows/Mac produced an .avi file, while the "save as" function for iPod
and PSP
produced an .mp4 file.
This .avi file was not in standard AVI format. To play the file in a popular media player such as Winamp or Windows Media Player, the file had to first be modified, using a hex editor to delete the first LIST block in the file header, which started at byte 12 (000C hex, first byte in file is byte 0) and ended at byte 63 (003F hex). Optionally, the file length (in bytes 4 to 7, little endian) should also be amended, by subtracting 52 (3F hex – 0C hex = 33 hex).
Winamp and Windows Media Player cannot play the unmodified .avi file because the non-standard file header corrupts the file. However, Media Player Classic
, MPlayer
, the VLC Media Player
and GOM Player
will play the unmodified .avi file, and the Google .mp4 file. Media Player Classic can do so only if an MPEG-4 DirectShow
Filter, such as ffdshow
, is installed. Most Linux media players (including xine
, Totem
, the Linux version of VLC Media Player
, and Kaffeine
) have no problem playing Google's .avi format.
An .mp4 video file will play in Winamp 5 if an MPEG-4/H.264 DirectShow Filter such as ffdshow
and an MP4 Splitter such as Haali are installed, and the extension ;MP4 is added to the Extension List in the Winamp DirectShow decoder configuration.
In the Spring of 2008, the option to download files in .AVI format was removed. Files were henceforth only available as Flash video or .MP4 video. The same videos, when accessed through the companion YouTube.com site, were available only in Flash video format.
feed by clicking the RSS link to the right of the results count or by adding &output=rss to the end of the URL
in your web browser's address area.
Changing the &num=20 part of the URL to &num=100 shows 100 results in the RSS feed instead of 20.
Regardless of general availability, content providers are given the opportunity to limit access to video files to only users from certain countries of residence. However, methods of circumventing geographical filtering exist.
Google Videos has been localized for several countries:
The strategy for Google Videos has shifted dramatically from an initial focus on digitizing offline content, akin to Google BookSearch, to then later focusing on fee-based downloads akin to iTunes, to then later focusing on social networking features akin to YouTube. Despite constant product development and business development churn, Google Videos had never attained market leadership in the online video space at the time when Google acquired YouTube.
Google Videos currently doesn't display the username under which videos on the service were uploaded.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
code alongside the media, similar to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. This allowed for websites to host large amounts of video remotely without running into bandwidth or storage capacity issues.
The service was launched on January 25, 2005. On October 9, 2006, Google bought former competitor YouTube. Google announced on June 13, 2007 that the Google Videos search results would begin to include videos discovered by their search crawlers on other hosting services, in YouTube and user uploads. Search result links now open a frameset with a Google Videos header at the top, and the original player page below it, similar to the way the Google Images search results are presented. In 2009, Google discontinued the ability to upload videos to Google
On April 15, 2011, Google announced via email that after April 29 they would no longer allow playback of content hosted on their service, but reversed the decision one week later in lieu of greater support for migration to Youtube.
Video content
Google Videos is geared towards providing a large archive of freely searchable videos. Besides amateur media, Internet videos, viral adsViral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
, and movie trailers, the service also aims to distribute commercial professional media, such as televised content and movies.
A number of educational discourses by Google employees have been recorded and made available for viewing via Google Videos. The lectures have been done mainly at the employees' former universities. The topics cover Google technologies and software engineering but also include other pioneering efforts by major players in the software engineering field.
On January 6, 2009 the Google Video Store was launched, which allowed paid downloads through Google Videos. The service launched with independent films Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks
Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks
Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks is a 2005 documentary film about the development of Fog Creek Copilot, a remote assistance software tool. Conceptualization of the film began when Fog Creek Software CEO Joel Spolsky announced on his blog that he was seeking a filmmaker to document the development of...
, and Waterborne
Waterborne
Waterborne is a 2005 independent film by Indian American film maker Ben Rekhi about the fates of three different groups of people after a terrorist attack pollutes the water supply of Los Angeles, resulting in a severe water shortage. It stars Christopher Masterson, Ajay Naidu, Jake Muxworthy, Jon...
, as well as content from media partners CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, the NBA, The Charlie Rose Show, and Sony BMG.Initially, the content of a number of broadcasting companies (such as ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
) was available as free streaming content or stills with closed captioning. In addition, the U.S. National Archive
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
used Google Videos to make historic films available online, but this project was later discontinued.
Google Videos also searches other non-affiliated video sites from web crawls. Sites searched by Google Videos in addition to their own videos and YouTube include GoFish
GoFish
GoFish was a free video sharing website, headquartered in San Francisco, California, allowing visitors to watch and upload video clips, similar to websites like YouTube and Google Video. It was started in May 2005 and ended in, or about, December 2008 when it was taken over by the GoFish...
, ExposureRoom, Vimeo, Myspace, Biku, and Yahoo! Video. It appears that Google Videos is moving away from an online video archive and toward a search engine for videos, similar to their web and image searches.
As of August 2007, the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program ended. Users who previously purchased a video from Google Videos were no longer able to view them. Credits for users were made available as values for Google Checkout
Google Checkout
Google Checkout is an online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases. Users store their credit or debit card and shipping information in their Google Account, so that they can purchase at participating stores by clicking an...
and were valid for 60 days.
Termination of video upload service
In 2009, Google ended the ability for users to upload videos to Google Videos. Videos that were already uploaded continued to be hosted. Later, other navigation features were retired, such as ability to cross-reference videos back to now-inactive user accounts, as well as selection of top videos.Uploading videos
Until 2009, users were able to upload videos either through the Google Videos website (limited to 100MB per file); or alternatively through the Google Video Uploader, available for WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
. Major producers with a thousand or more hours of video can apply for Google's Premium Program, which continues to allow for the uploading of videos.
While the Video Uploader application was available as three separate downloads, the Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
version was written in Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, a cross-platform
Cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
programming language, and would therefore also work on other operating systems without modifications, providing that the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed. This Java executable (.jar) file was a standalone application that did not require installation. Consequently, it could be run from removable media such as USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
s, CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s, or network storage. This allowed users to upload video even if the computer terminal on which they were working would not allow them to install programs, such as a public library computer.
Uploaded videos were saved as a .gvi files under the "Google Videos" folder in "My Videos" and reports of the video(s) details were logged and stored in the user account. The report sorted and listed the number of times that each of the user's videos had been viewed and downloaded within a specific time frame. These ranged from the previous day, week, month or the entire time the videos have been there. Totals were calculated and displayed and the information could be downloaded into a spreadsheet format or printed out.
Termination of video hosting
On April 15, 2011, Google announced that they would stop hosting user-uploaded videos. The plan would make videos unavailable for public viewing in 14 days and removed from users' accounts in 28 days. On April 22, a week after the announcement, Google announced that due to feedback they would not be removing videos at this time. Instead they will start automatically migrating videos to Youtube, as well as providing easier tools for account holders to do so themselves.Video distribution methods
Google Videos offers both free services and commercial videos, the latter controlled with digital rights managementDigital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
.
Website
The basic way to watch the videos is through the Google Videos website, video.google.com. Each video has a unique web address in the format ofhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid= Flash Video file which can be viewed in any Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
-enabled browser.
Permalinks to a certain point in a video are also possible, in the format of
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid= #XXhYYmZZs (that is, with a fragment identifierFragment identifier
In computer hypertext, a fragment identifier is a short string of characters that refers to a resource that is subordinate to another, primary resource...
containing a timestamp).
Flash Video
The browser automatically cacheCache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
s the flash file while it plays, and it can be retrieved from the browser cache once it has fully played. There are also several tools and browser extensions to download the file. It can be then viewed in video players that can handle flash, for example VLC media player
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
, Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...
(with ffdshow
Ffdshow
ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well...
installed), MPlayer
MPlayer
MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
or Wimpy
Wimpy
Wimpy could refer to:*J. Wellington Wimpy, a hamburger-loving character from the Popeye cartoons*Wimpy , a chain of hamburger restaurants, named after the cartoon character*Wimpy P-1, the first registered American Quarter Horse...
.
Google Video Player
Google Video Player was another way to view Google videos; it ran on WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. The Google Video Player plays back files in Google's own Google Video File (.gvi) media format and supported playlists in "Google Video Pointer" (.gvp) format. When users downloaded to their computers, the resulting file used to be a small .gvp (pointer) file rather than a .gvi file. When run, the .gvp file would download a .gvi (movie) file to the user's default directory.
As of August 17, 2007, Google Video Player has been discontinued and is no longer available for download from the Google Videos website. The option to download videos in GVI format has also been removed, the only format available being iPod/PSP (MP4 format).
While early versions of Google's in-browser video player code were based on the open source VLC Media Player
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
, the last version of Google Video Player was not based on VLC, according to its readme file. However, it did include the OpenSSL
OpenSSL
OpenSSL is an open source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions...
cryptographic
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
toolkit and some libraries from the Qt
Qt (toolkit)
Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...
widget
Web widget
In computing a web widget is a software widget for the web. It's a small application that can be installed and executed within a web page by an end user. They are derived from the idea of code reuse. Other terms used to describe web widgets include: portlet, gadget, badge, module, webjit, capsule,...
toolkit.
GVI format and conversion
Google Video Files (.gvi), and latterly its .avi files, are modified Audio Video InterleaveAudio Video Interleave
Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
(.avi) files that have an extra list containing the FourCC
FourCC
A FourCC is a sequence of four bytes used to uniquely identify data formats.The concept originated in the OSType scheme used in the Macintosh system software and was adopted for the Amiga/Electronic Arts Interchange File Format and derivatives...
"goog" immediately following the header. The list can be removed with a hex editor to avoid playback issues with various video players. The video is encoded in MPEG-4 ASP
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...
alongside an MP3 audio stream. MPEG-4
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
video players can render .gvi Google Video Files without format conversion (after changing the extension from .gvi to .avi, although this method of just renaming the file extension does not work with videos purchased with DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
to inhibit unauthorized copying. Among other software VirtualDub
VirtualDub
VirtualDub is a video capture and video processing utility for Microsoft Windows written by Avery Lee.It is designed to process linear video streams, including filtering and recompression...
is able to read .gvi files and allows the user to convert them into different formats of choice. There are also privately developed software solutions, such as GVideo Fix, that can convert them to .avi format without recompression. MEncoder
MEncoder
MEncoder is a free command line video decoding, encoding and filtering tool released under the GNU General Public License. It is a close sibling to MPlayer and can convert all the formats that MPlayer understands into a variety of compressed and uncompressed formats using different codecs.MEncoder...
with "-oac copy -ovc copy" as parameters also suffices.
AVI and MP4
Besides GVI and Flash Video, Google provided its content through downloadable Audio Video InterleaveAudio Video Interleave
Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
(.avi) and MPEG-4
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
(.mp4) video files. Not all formats are available through the website's interface, however, depending on the user's operating system.
Where available, Google's "save as" function for Windows/Mac produced an .avi file, while the "save as" function for iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
and PSP
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
produced an .mp4 file.
This .avi file was not in standard AVI format. To play the file in a popular media player such as Winamp or Windows Media Player, the file had to first be modified, using a hex editor to delete the first LIST block in the file header, which started at byte 12 (000C hex, first byte in file is byte 0) and ended at byte 63 (003F hex). Optionally, the file length (in bytes 4 to 7, little endian) should also be amended, by subtracting 52 (3F hex – 0C hex = 33 hex).
Winamp and Windows Media Player cannot play the unmodified .avi file because the non-standard file header corrupts the file. However, Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...
, MPlayer
MPlayer
MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
, the VLC Media Player
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
and GOM Player
Gom player
GOM Player is a 32-bit media player for Microsoft Windows, distributed by the Gretech Corporation of South Korea. It is alleged that Gretech distributes GOM Player in violation of copyright law....
will play the unmodified .avi file, and the Google .mp4 file. Media Player Classic can do so only if an MPEG-4 DirectShow
DirectShow
DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
Filter, such as ffdshow
Ffdshow
ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well...
, is installed. Most Linux media players (including xine
Xine
xine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization...
, Totem
Totem (media player)
Totem is a media player for the GNOME computer desktop environment which runs on GNU/Linux, Solaris, BSD and other Unix and Unix-like systems. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10 , but de facto it was already included in most GNOME environments...
, the Linux version of VLC Media Player
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
, and Kaffeine
Kaffeine
Kaffeine is a media player for Unix-like operating systems running KDE.By default it uses xine-lib media framework but also supports GStreamer. It also supports the use of MPlayer project's binary codecs for proprietary formats...
) have no problem playing Google's .avi format.
An .mp4 video file will play in Winamp 5 if an MPEG-4/H.264 DirectShow Filter such as ffdshow
Ffdshow
ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder mainly used for the fast and high-quality decoding of video in the MPEG-4 ASP and AVC formats, but it supports numerous other video and audio formats as well...
and an MP4 Splitter such as Haali are installed, and the extension ;MP4 is added to the Extension List in the Winamp DirectShow decoder configuration.
In the Spring of 2008, the option to download files in .AVI format was removed. Files were henceforth only available as Flash video or .MP4 video. The same videos, when accessed through the companion YouTube.com site, were available only in Flash video format.
Third-party download services
Google offers users the means to save only some of the videos on the site, mostly for copyright reasons. Their documentation goes so far as to claim that only these videos can be downloaded. However, since viewing a video requires downloading it to the computer, their software merely makes saving videos difficult, not impossible: a number of solutions, including external software and bookmarklets, have been developed.RSS feed
Google Videos search results can be viewed in an RSSRSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
feed by clicking the RSS link to the right of the results count or by adding &output=rss to the end of the URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
in your web browser's address area.
Changing the &num=20 part of the URL to &num=100 shows 100 results in the RSS feed instead of 20.
Market adoption
Despite availability of downloading in multiple formats, being less restrictive on video uploads, and Google being tremendously well-known, Google Videos had only a minor share from the online video market, amassing around 2,500,000 videos uploaded.Availability of service
While initially only available in the United States, over time Google Videos has become available to users in more countries and can now be accessed from many other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, China and Japan.Regardless of general availability, content providers are given the opportunity to limit access to video files to only users from certain countries of residence. However, methods of circumventing geographical filtering exist.
International
| Country/Region | URL | Languages |
|---|---|---|
| http://video.google.com.au/ | Australian English Australian English Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language.... |
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| http://video.google.com.br/ | Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay.... |
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| http://video.google.ca/ | Canadian English Canadian English Canadian English is the variety of English spoken in Canada. English is the first language, or "mother tongue", of approximately 24 million Canadians , and more than 28 million are fluent in the language... Canadian French Canadian French Canadian French is an umbrella term referring to the varieties of French spoken in Canada. French is the mother tongue of nearly seven million Canadians, a figure constituting roughly 22% of the national population. At the federal level it has co-official status alongside English... |
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| http://video.google.cn/ | Chinese | |
| http://video.google.fr/ | French | |
| http://video.google.de/ | German | |
| http://video.google.it/ | Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
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| http://video.google.nl/ | Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... |
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| http://video.google.pl/ | Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
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| http://video.google.es/ | Spanish | |
| http://video.google.co.uk/ | British English British English British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere... |
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| http://video.google.com | American English American English American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States.... |
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| http://video.google.com.ar | Spanish | |
| http://video.google.ru | Russian | |
| Hebrew |
Criticisms
Google Videos has little organization of content and no noticeable pricing scheme. However, pay content (available currently in the United States only) is arranged in a few categories. A video ranking in the form of a Top 100 has been introduced and the official Google Video Blog features "Google Picks" (videos considered noteworthy by Google) on a regular basis. "Google Picks" are currently also available via the Google Videos homepage.The strategy for Google Videos has shifted dramatically from an initial focus on digitizing offline content, akin to Google BookSearch, to then later focusing on fee-based downloads akin to iTunes, to then later focusing on social networking features akin to YouTube. Despite constant product development and business development churn, Google Videos had never attained market leadership in the online video space at the time when Google acquired YouTube.
Google Videos currently doesn't display the username under which videos on the service were uploaded.
See also
- Comparison of video servicesComparison of video servicesThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable video hosting services. Please see the individual products' articles for further information...
- List of video hosting websites