Video Categories

To begin your video adventure at Google Video point your Web browser to video.google.com. Visiting this page launches the Google Video search page, as shown in Figure 5.1. Notice along the top of the page, just beneath the search box, there are links to the various video categories. They include:

• Top 100

• Comedy

• Music videos

• Movies

• Sports

• Animation

• TV shows

• Google Picks

Figure 5.1: Search for all types of videos from the Google Video page.

Links to the top 100 rated videos are displayed in the Top 100 category along with a user rating and the number of people who rated the video. Google bases the rating on how many people watched a video the previous day. On the Top 100 page, you can also click the link at the top to see the top Movers & Shakers. Clicking this link allows you to see the list of videos that are popular today and most likely to end up in the next day’s Top 100.

Click on the Comedy category to see humorous videos, including several animated comedy previews where the longer, complete videos are for sale. You may need to click through several pages to find the video you are looking for. You can narrow your search using different methods explained in the next section.

The Music videos category contains primarily previews to longer music videos that you can purchase for viewing through Google videos. The Sports category contains many videos of amazing feats along with video highlights of your favorite sports. The Movies category is a little different from the rest, providing trailers to movies currently in the theater. You can also search for local show times. The Animation category allows you to see previews to animated movies, but you can also search on free videos to see stock footage and amateur creations. TV shows category displays previews for TV shows and segments where complete versions are largely available for purchase.

The Google Picks category provides links to the best videos according to the folks at Google. There are normally some excellent choices available for your free viewing pleasure.

Selecting videos

When selecting from the thousands of available videos, it helps to be able to select based on criteria. After all, Google’s strength is allowing you to find what you’re looking for quickly and easily. The same is true for most of the categories in Google Video.

Sort the videos in a category by price, duration, and the type of search. Select from the drop-downs found in the blue bar above the videos. From the Price drop-down you can select All prices, Free only, or For sale only. From the Duration drop-down you can choose to see videos that are Short (< 4 min), Medium (4-20 min), and Long (>20 min). You can also sort by Relevance, Date, and Title.

You can sort videos in the Music videos, Sports, Animation, TV shows, and Google Picks. The sorting option is not currently available in the other categories.