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Google Moves Into Video

Posted by Hemos on from the finally-tipping-their-hand dept.

prostoalex writes "Google will start indexing previously aired content from ABC, PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN and offer it as part of its Web search. No fancy speech-to-text recognition, just the closed captioning provided by the television networks, and no direct links to videocontent either." Right now, most of the channels are SF Bay area stations, but obviously more will be coming along. I saw a demo of this about six months or so ago - it's pretty cool, and interesting to see how far it has come.

38 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Not as good as it sounds by ironfrost · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the article:

    Search engine analyst Charlene Li of Forrester Research said Google's latest innovation is likely to disappoint many people because it doesn't provide a direct link to watch the previously broadcast programming.

    Google instead is displaying up to five still video images from the indexed television programs, as well as snippets from the show's narrative. The search results also will provide a breakdown on when the program aired and when an episode is scheduled to be repeated. Local programming information will be available for those who provide a ZIP code.

    1. Re:Not as good as it sounds by dschuetz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Google instead is displaying up to five still video images from the indexed television programs, as well as snippets from the show's narrative. The search results also will provide a breakdown on when the program aired and when an episode is scheduled to be repeated. Local programming information will be available for those who provide a ZIP code.

      Hey, even that is an great service. Of course, the closed captioning is rarely very good. I never understand how, on a show that was produced weeks before it was aired, the captions are often messed up, or missing key words. Captions (also on DVD subtitles) seem to be shorthand summaries of what was said, when it's usually possible for them to be exact transcripts.

      Sometimes it's not a big deal, but sometimes they miss an important point or nuance.

      What'd be great, though, is real honest-to-god searching of the audio. I've seen demos where you can literally type in "helicopter," and you'll get hotlinks to the exact times in the video wherever that word was said. It's fscking amazing. Not sure it's a publicly available technology yet, tho...but the capability is definitely out there, and I'm sure we're not the only people playing with this.

    2. Re:Not as good as it sounds by jrumney · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Our mission is to organize the world's information, and that includes the thousands of programs that play on our TVs every day.

      Also not as good as it sounds, apparently "the world" only extends to a few of the major US TV networks.

      BBC already has video online, and they add subtitles to all content broadcast on BBC1 and BBC2, so it should have been easy to include them in the test. Given BBC's attitude towards the internet and making information freely available compared with most commercial broadcasters, they probably would have bent over backwards to help Google with this.

    3. Re:Not as good as it sounds by LocoMan · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I have added subtitles to a few videos (I work on a video production place, and sometimes we get a video in english that a company wants subtitled in spanish for their people to see, or a video we made for them in spanish subtitled to english to distribute internationally to their clients), and subtitles/captions most of the times must be shorter than what was said (specially in fast dialogue) or most people will just not have enough time to read what was said. The general rule of using text in video is that it must be there on screen at least enough time to read it twice at a leisurely pace. Of course, this can't be used when doing subtitles or captions, but you can't really expect people to read as fast as it's spoken or more often than not they won't have finished reading by the time it switches to the next piece of text.

      Not sure if you've seen it, but you should see some of the spanish subtitles I've read... sometimes even entire pieces of conversations are changed because the correct translation would take too long on the screen to read... and of course there are the odd translations that are completely off the mark (I remember a version of the wing commander movie I saw where the name of the main ship, the Tiger's Claw, even if it was written several times on the movie, kept being translated at the "Tiger's Clock")

    4. Re:Not as good as it sounds by earthman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Keep in mind that not everybody is a highly trained speedreader. Sometimes you must summarize, otherwise you end up with either a screen full of text, or the captions flashing by like subliminal messages.

      Of course there is no excuse for errors in subtitling if they had plenty of time for checking it.

    5. Re:Not as good as it sounds by new500 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This was the plan that would make video search a killer tool :

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_ ra dio/3177479.stm

      Summary : Exiled Director General of the BBC planned to open the whole BBC archive online.

      Makes me think. Did he resign over the Hutton enquiry , or was he pushed out by Murdochs lobbying. Similar timescale.

      I mean, who would watch SKY if you could go online and watch anything the BBC ever produced. OK, almost. BBC don't own the Simpsons. But i bet Discovery would be short a few vieiwers . . anyhow, Spaghetti all round. .

    6. Re:Not as good as it sounds by Vasan · · Score: 2, Funny
      Captions (also on DVD subtitles) seem to be shorthand summaries of what was said, when it's usually possible for them to be exact transcripts.

      And sometimes the subtitles are quite accurate.

    7. Re:Not as good as it sounds by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. Many times life time deaf people can not read as fast as hearing people.
      2. Captions have a limited bandwidth. usually 60 chars a second.
      3. For the pop up style captions on most recorded TV shows there is first a build time follows by a display command. The build can not during a commercial brake so you have to wait until the show starts again.
      4. To do a good job captioning takes a long time. As much as 10 hours to do one hour of captioning. Corners get cut.
      5. Text takes space on the screen.
      Captioning does provide a good way to search video. I would love to see a hack for say myth tv where it monitors cnn, or msnbc or the news channel of your choice for key words. When it finds them it starts to record.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    8. Re:Not as good as it sounds by TheSync · · Score: 2, Informative

      About 60 cps, that is only NTSC line 21 (EIA 608) captions. In the digital TV world (ATSC), EIA 708 captions have much more bandwidth. But few people are making 708 captions directly today, generally they are produced from existing 608 captions.

    9. Re:Not as good as it sounds by gobbo · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I never understand how, on a show that was produced weeks before it was aired, the captions are often messed up, or missing key words.

      Most people don't realize that captioning is done in near-real-time, and considering that, the captioners do an AMAzing job, you should watch them in action.

      --
      Damn those pesky terrorists
  2. Re:Whoops by zavfoud · · Score: 3, Funny

    "detrimental performance impact on their servers from the increased exposure" This is google not World of Warcraft. ;)

  3. This doesn't change anything.... by The-Bus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google Suggest's 'p' search term will definitely still be Paris Hilton.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    1. Re:This doesn't change anything.... by spellraiser · · Score: 2, Informative
      Google Suggest's 'p' search term will definitely still be Paris Hilton.

      No, unfortunately you're wrong. Please allow me to explain.

      From the article:

      ... previously aired content from ABC, PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN

      As we all know, Miss Hilton's and Miss Simpson's ever-popular show, The Simple Life, is a FOX production, so it won't be included.

      Pity.

      P.S. You were talking about that show, right?

      --
      I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
  4. Focus on searching by Underholdning · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know googles mission is to index all the information out there - and they're on the right track. This is probably a step in the right direction, but IMHO it's too early.
    I'd much rather have them to spend time presenting the currently indexed information. It's almost impossible to find information on any piece of hardware these days without having to walk through dozens of pages trying to sell that piece of hardware.

    --
    Underholdning.info
    1. Re:Focus on searching by odyrithm · · Score: 5, Informative

      try for example: pentium p4 -buy

      - is your friend, use it wisely.

      --
      moo
  5. When I can Google.... by jmcmunn · · Score: 2, Insightful


    When I can Google the entire closed caption script of every epsiode of the Simpsons and Family Guy, I'll be a happy man!

    (And yes, I realize that those sites are actually out there somewhere, but I want the text straight from the horse's mouth so to speak)

    1. Re:When I can Google.... by stutterbug · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And there is where Google will get shivved.

      I used to manage the Discovery Channel Canada's web site at a time when we were transforming the site from an online science news magazine to a video-on-demand supplier of Discovery Channel Canada material. One of the things a few of us were interested in doing was offering up transcripts of aired programs. Doing it was simple, even then, since most TV tuner cards were capable of grabbing the captioning info from a vertical interval and dumping it to a text file. The main problem, I thought, was that the material was always ALL CAPS and chock-a-block with seplling mistaks (in my own opinion, I thought that after the show had aired, the captions were actually useless for anything more than internal archival purposes). The real problem, though, was that often (really often), we didn't actually own the copyright.

      Commonly, an outside company produces a show for a broadcaster. Once the show has aired, they are free to sell it to other broadcasters in other regions. So they are particularly feverish about protecting their material from the Internet. I mean, why would a broadcaster in Germany want to buy a television program translated into German if its English transcripts were available on the Internet? Well, I thought that was a garbage argument, but the lawyers didn't. In fact, the supply contracts with outside show producers were so fanatically exact, that using the captions for anyone other than the hard of hearing was simple out of the question.

      So if the broadcaster can't use that material, what makes Google think they can?

      Besides, do you think for one moment that Fox will let anyone use stills and complete transcripts of The Simpsons? Not in a million years, man.

      I see busy days ahead for http://chillingeffects.org/.

  6. already started by stefankoegl · · Score: 5, Informative

    indexing has already started december 2004 and the services was launched today at http://video.google.com/

  7. great.. just great by apostrophesemicolon · · Score: 5, Funny

    now how will C-Span's coverage of White House speeches deal with teh great use of English literature such as the following?

    Bush:
    "nucular"
    "abu.. abu.. abu.. abu grabby prison"

    Rumsfeld:
    "here are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

    1. Re:great.. just great by wuzfuzzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Rumsfelds comments are in perfect English. This has been debated here before. This is a known known.

    2. Re:great.. just great by real+gumby · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Rumsfeld's comment is an unremarkable epistemological truism. I don't understand the pseudo-uproar. Is there really anyone who doesn't believe what he said?

      Given he's made so many outrageous (and I believe false and mendacious statements) this is such a bizarre thing to pick on.

  8. Blinx.com by joeykiller · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As cool as Google is, I also think Blinx.com's search deserves mentioning. According to their white paper they transcribe video content on the fly, and you can even set up "smart searches" which notifies you when new content matching your search becomes available.

    This apparently only applies to video content available on the web, but I guess it could potentially be done with TV content as well. It seems to me like this -- if it works -- is one step ahead of Google's approach.

  9. ahhhh by TechnologyX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This will be great to grab the latest soundbytes from when Newscasters completely blow their commentary.. Like the woman that said that President Clinton may have been gay, when she meant to say Lincoln.

    I'd say this is Jon Stewart's new homepage

    --
    Slashdot sucks
  10. the submitter forgot the link by zr-rifle · · Score: 4, Informative

    it's obviously video.google.com

    --
    Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
  11. Yahoo does this, too. by ubernostrum · · Score: 2, Informative

    See here or here. Unlike Google, they provide a "Ply this video" link for each result.

  12. Needs tweaking by costas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The results seem to be skewed when the search term is a person or character in the show: check out the search for Carson and notice how almost every result is the Carson Daily show with hardly any news on Johny Carson --because every second line in the closed captions is "Carson >".

  13. Including Commercials by technix4beos · · Score: 3, Informative

    It appears the search engine still doesn't distinguish from commercials.

    Check out this link to the word "Enterprise":

    http://video.google.com/videopreview?q=enterprise& time=1635000&page=1&docid=-461731869880380565&urlc reated=1106660109&chan=KBHK&prog=Star+Trek%3A+Ente rprise+%7C+Observer+Effect&date=Sun+Jan+23+2005+at +8%3A00+PM+PST&hmac=p/JYdFPwXt3fhHNmwFo9vvVaTYY.

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    user@host$ diff /dev/urandom /dev/uspto
  14. I for one welcome our search engine overlords... by bigdaddyhame · · Score: 5, Funny


    Google = SkyNet.

    So when exactly does the Google A.I. go online? Just curious so I can start caching weapons in the desert.

    --
    ---- You are fully entitled to my opinion.
  15. Re:Cool by ceeam · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sure, use www.google.ca, groups.google.ca.

  16. Re:Cool by MrP-(at+work) · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Canadian google groups still has the old interface: http://groups.google.ca

    Yay Canada is good for something after all! =P

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    [an error occurred while processing this directive]
  17. Re:I for one welcome our search engine overlords.. by zwei2stein · · Score: 2, Funny

    you mean ... you havent started yet? ... yet another human horribly underprepared for army of death of our beloved overlord google.

    --
    -- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
  18. Re:I for one welcome our search engine overlords.. by Zembar · · Score: 2, Funny

    You mean you don't know about the beta version at ai.google.com? If there ever would be a place for an "I feel assimilated" button, that would be it.

  19. Things that will happen before it's a real service by digitalgimpus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't doubt this will become a non-beta, homepage service. Just like GIS... .though a few things will happen:

    1. Facial recognition will be around. It already exists, several companies have offered such products for video, mainly for the purpose of the entertainment industry.

    2. Speech Recognition for indexing.

    I've got a feeling right now they are just trying to see what type of reaction 'video' gets. Just to guage the interest.

    It's not bad already, it's pretty cool. But I'm betting this is only the beginning.

  20. Linux references by tji · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I did a search for "Linux" to try out the site. It came up with an amusing reference from an episode of NCIS.

    " One man's linux is another's Os/2. (Laughs) I hear that." ...

    NCIS

  21. It is possible for them to do more than one thing by blorg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...you know; they do have ~2k employees. By your logic, we wouldn't have Google News, GMail, G Groups, G Desktop, Froogle, Orkut, G Suggest, G Print, G Calculator, pdf/doc search, Picasa, etc. etc.*

    Google employees get to spend a day a week working on a project that interests them - good for employee morale, and some of these pet projects have turned out very useful indeed.

    *yes, I know some of these were originally purchases.

  22. Neat by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am doing something very similar in my apartment: an always-on mini-itx media server that (among other things) records free-to-air TV with teletext and provides me an interface to the teletext. While teletext isn't completely accurate, it makes for a huge body of searchable content.

    Google instead is displaying up to five still video images from the indexed television programs, as well as snippets from the show's narrative. The search results also will provide a breakdown on when the program aired and when an episode is scheduled to be repeated. Local programming information will be available for those who provide a ZIP code.

    I think Google is aiming to stay within fair-use boundaries. (And also avoiding taking on a needless bandwidth burden serving video).

    It would be possible for people to use "Google Video Search" to identify interesting TV content outside their local area, then request snippets a P2P manner from users whose computers were in the local area of the broadcast.

    What are the fair-use guidelines for recording and sharing of free-to-air TV content, can someone say?

    TiVO got US FCC permission for:
    its customers [to] receive digital broadcasts and share them with up to 10 other TiVo units that share the same customer account. .
    However, if 10 TiVOs "share a customer account", they belong to the same person (or to his family).

    Is sharing, say, a 5 minute clip of a news broadcast between different computers belonging to different people allowed?

  23. Yahoo and google 2 different approaches?? by Darthmalt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google looks to be providing transcripts and information of videos whereas Yahoo is providing the videos themselves.

    Compare the results of these two searches for the daily show

    YAHOO
    GOOGLE

    Surprisingly GOOGLE doesnt actually show the daily show just programs that mention it.

  24. Interesting Closed Captions by N1ck0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I noticed last night that you guys have interesting closed captions in Mountain View.

    Warning - A Possibly Offensive Keyword

    On the other hand, it is Fox News Channel.