Google Video is a free Google service that allows anyone to upload video clips to Google's web servers as well as make their own media available free of charge or Google Video Store. Users can search and play videos directly from Google Video, as well as download video files and remotely embed them on their webpages.
Competing services include iFilm, MetaCafe, Veoh, and Outloud.tv. Former competitor YouTube was purchased by Google on October 9, 2006 for $1.65 billion, but will remain a separate service under their own identity for the near future, though YouTube search results may include Google Video clips, and vice versa [1].
Video content
Google Video is targeted towards offering a large archive of freely searchable videos. Besides amateur media, Internet videos, viral ads, and movie trailers, the service also aims to distribute commercial professional media, such as televised content and movies.
Various media companies offer content on Google Video for purchase, including CBS programs, NBA, music videos, and independent film. 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 uses Google Video to make historic films available online.[2]
Video distribution methods
Google Video offers free services and commercial videos, the latter controlled with digital rights management. An Adobe Flash viewer plays videos in Flash Video (.flv) format inside the web browser.
Google Video Player
 | |
 The main window. | |
| Developer(s) | |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 1.0.2.1
/ 2006-09-14 |
| Operating system | Mac OS X, Windows |
| Type | Video player |
| Website | http://video.google.com/playerdownload |
Google Video Player is another way to view Google videos; it runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The Google Video Player renders files in Google's own Google Video File (.gvi) media format and supports playlists in "Google Video Pointer" (.gvp) format. When users download to their computers, the resulting file will be a small .gvp (pointer) file rather than a .gvi file. When run, the .gvp file will download a .gvi (movie) file to the user's default directory.
The Google Video website also renders files in Macromedia Flash (.flv) format, if the web browser has the Macromedia Flash plugin installed. Using the "save as" function for Windows/Mac will produce an .avi file. Using the "save as" function for iPod or PSP will produce an .mp4 file.
According to the readme file, the current version of Google Video Player is not based on VLC Media Player. However, it does include the OpenSSL cryptographic toolkit and some libraries from the Qt widget toolkit.[3]
Flash Video
The Google Video Player displays a flash video (.flv) file in a supported browser, such as Internet Explorer. The browser automatically caches the flash file whilst it plays, and it can be retreived from the browser's cache once it has fully played. In Windows O/S variants this cache is typically located at "C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files".
The flash video file is in Macromedia Flash format, and requires that the Macromedia Flash plugin is installed in the web browser (the latest version of this plugin is called Adobe Flash Player 9).
Winamp and Windows Media Player cannot play flash files. These files do, however, play in the new freeware Wimpy media player.
GVI format and conversion
Google Video Files (.gvi), and latterly its .avi files, are modified Audio Video Interleave (.avi) files with an extra list containing the FourCC "goog" immediately following the header. The video is encoded in DivX4 alongside an MP3 audio stream. DivX video players can render Google Video Files without format conversion (after changing the extension from .gvi to .avi, if necessary). Among other software VirtualDub is able to read .gvi files and allows to convert them into different formats of choice. There are also privately developed software solutions, such as GVideo Fix, that can perform this conversion for the user without reconversion.
AVI and MP4
Besides Flash Video and GVI, Google provides its content through downloadable Audio Video Interleave (.avi) and MPEG4 (.mp4) files. Not all formats are available through the website's interface, however, depending on the user's operating system.
To enable a Google .avi file to play in other media players, such as Winamp or Windows Media Player, open the file in a hex editor (e.g. XVI32.exe) and delete the first LIST block in the file header. That block starts at byte 12 (000C hex) and ends at byte 63 (003F hex), and is 52 bytes in length. Also edit the file length (in bytes 5 to 8), by subtracting 52 (34 hex).
The VLC Media Player will play unmodified Google .avi files and unmodified Google .mp4 files (using its internal codec). Winamp and Windows Media Player cannot play the unmodified files, because the non-standard file header corrupts the file.
Third-party extensions
Third party browser extensions[4], corresponding scripts[5], bookmarklets[6] and websites[7] facilitate direct and straightforward access to all available formats as well as offering access to users of operating systems not officially supported by Google Video.
However, within the Windows operating system Bookmarklets do not function under Windows 9x or ME.
External embedding of Google Video files
Google Video allows select videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provides the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube. This allows for websites to host large amounts of video remotely on Google Video without running into bandwidth or storage capacity issues.
Uploading videos
Users may choose to upload videos either through the Google Video website [1] (limited to 100MB) or alternatively through the Google Video Uploader, available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Major producers with a thousand or more hours of video can apply for Google's Premium Program.
While the application is available as three separate downloads, the Linux version is written in Java, a cross-platform programming language, and will therefore also work on other operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, without modifications, providing that the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed. Also worthy of note is the fact that this Java executable (.jar) file is a standalone application that does not require installation. Consequently, it can be run from removable media such as USB flash drives, CD-ROMs, or network storage. This allows the user to upload video even if the computer terminal on which he or she is working will not allow him or her to install programs, such as a public library computer.
Availability of service
While initially only available in the United States, over time Google Video has become available to users in more countries and can now be accessed from many other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and India.
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[8] exist.
Criticisms
Google Video is sometimes criticized for its poor video quality, although this criticism is not unique to Google. The video quality may depend on a variety of factors, including the quality of the original media, conversion into video formats used by Google Video, and reduction of resolution to fit the website.
Another popular criticism is that Google Video has little organization of content and no noticeable pricing scheme[9][10]. 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 Video homepage.
While the lack of a fixed pricing scheme may be perceived as confusing by a number of users, it does offer content providers a wider scope in terms of individual pricing. Whether this pricing concept will be accepted and retained beyond beta remains to be seen.
There has also been criticism regarding varying standards used by Google on evaluating the content of each video for suitability. For example, Google might accept a video featuring graphic violence and profanity, but reject a milder one, with no apparent means of objective analysis.
The video uploading tool also receives various complaints, due to its "Uploading failed" error message which seems to appear in random cases without any explanation why the upload was not successful. Google has not yet addressed this issue. [2]
Additional criticism of Google Video has been on a lack of end user tools to add tables of content and chapters to the videos, which make longer format videos easier to annotate, view, navigate and understand.
Notes
- ^ Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion
- ^ National Archives and Google Launch Pilot Project (...) (NARA press release, published on 2006-02-24)
- ^ Copyrights for Google Video Player, noting the inclusion of several open source libraries
- ^ Greasemonkey (an extension for the Firefox browser)
- ^ zeekat.nl, userscripts.org (Greasemonkey script for Google Video)
- ^ Google Video Download Bookmarklets (download Google Video files in FLV, AVI and MP4 format)
- ^ keepvid.com, javimoya.com (download helper websites)
- ^ Watch Google Videos in any country (bypass Google Video's geographical filtering)
- ^ Google Video: Trash Mixed With Treasure (a New York Times editorial, by David Pogue, published on 2006-01-19)
- ^ C|net Editor's Review For Google Video (Beta) (edited by James Kim, reviewed by Troy Dreier on 2006-02-07)
See also
- Comparison of video services
- iTunes Video Store (Video Store by Apple)
External links
Official Links
- Google Video (Official Homepage)
- Google Video Top100 (Official Ranking of most popular videos)
- Official Google Video Blog
- Source code for Google's changes to VLC Viewer.