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Google Video Becomes Search-Only, YouTube Holds Content

Posted by Zonk on from the one-falls-while-the-other-rises dept.

Bangor writes "Google is planning to turn Google Video into a search index of all the world's available video online. The change will see YouTube becoming Google's only platform for user-generated video and premium content sales, and Google said that YouTube content would be immediately added to the Google Video search index. The company plans to expand that to eventually include all video online. From the article: 'The company said that they 'envision most user-generated and premium video content being hosted on YouTube,' which clearly suggests that the Google Video storefront will eventually give way to YouTube.'"

7 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Official Announcement by warmgun · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a link to the official announcement from Google's blog.

  2. Too bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google's interface was better. The videos could easily take up nearly full screen, the quality seemed a little bit higher, and it was just overall easier to deal with compared to YouTube.

    1. Re:Too bad by painQuin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But maybe, just maybe, Google will take that into consideration, and use the Google Video backend to power the YouTube website? YouTube is basically a name and color scheme, as far as most people are concerned.

      --
      A guilty conscience means at least you've got one.
    2. Re:Too bad by alphamugwump · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I liked about google video was the fact that the stream was seekable. You could drag the little slider past the end of the buffer, the video would start buffering from that point, and it still play. That doesn't work with youtube.

  3. RTFA! Google Video Will Still Host Content! by pctainto · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google Video is not going away! All they're doing is adding YouTube results to the search results when you search Google Video. Their plan is to at some point incorporate other video websites so that Google Video is not just a place to view videos, but also the one place to search for videos.

    http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/look-ahead- at-google-video-and-youtube.html

    --
    I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
  4. You're confusing things by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're mixing up several issues here.

    Firstly, posting a video on YouTube does not require any flash development at all. So the availability of FOSS flash development tools for POSTING is a non-starter.

    Secondly, YouTube supports a plethora of codecs, some of which are already FOSS. For example, I know they support XVid for a fact. Now, I know this is an MPEG4 based codec and is therefore patent-encumbered in some parts of the world, but IMO this has nothing to do with if it is FOSS or not. YouTube may already support FOSS codecs like Theora, Dirac and Tarkin, I don't know I have never tried. But frankly, it would not surprise me if they did, especially since they already support obscure formats like "Sega Video".

    The only FOSS-related issue, as far as YouTube goes, is the fact that you (supposedly) need a binary flash PLAYER to VIEW the content. I say "supposedly" because in actual fact, anyone can download the .flv file and use FOSS tools to transcode it to any format you want, including simply changing the container losslessly. Since these tools are already available, it would not be out of reach to envision a simple FOSS Firefox plugin that did this on the fly for YouTube and other similar sites.

  5. No, Google Video allowed 4X higher resolution by ebonkyre · · Score: 5, Informative

    GV allowed 640x480 with no size/length restrictions and no fee.
    YT maxes out at 320x240, with a 100MB/10min limit on free accounts.

    --
    "Time is an abstract concept devised by carbon-based lifeforms to monitor their ongoing decay." - Thundercleese