The search engine giant Google (www.google.com) announced on January 25 the launch of its video search engine Google Video (http://video.google.com). Google has indexed video and complete transcripts of thousands of TV shows, which users will be able to search using the service. A search for a phrase will return an excerpt of a matching program transcript and a still TV image of exactly when the phrase was spoken. Users will be able to search transcripts and view related TV images from content providers including the Public Broadcasting Service, the National Basketball Association, Fox News Networks, and C-SPAN.
John Piscitello, a product manager at Google, said that the search service offers the ability to discover information that can't be found on the Web, that it's a search service that points to relevant TV shows in the local area, that Google Video shows more information from the show on the preview page, that it shows five stills and snippets from a show, and that video playback is the obvious next step. Based on the transcript search results, users can also view further information about a TV program. The ability to search for specific keywords within a program is also offered by Google Video.
