Playing the Video


So far, this chapter has discussed the organization of videos on the Google Video site and how to find what you’re looking for. Now it’s time to find out what you can do once you find a video you want to watch. Once you select the video you want to see, click on the image associated with the video. A new page launches and the video begins loading in your Web browser. At first, you see a black area on the screen where the video eventually begins playing, and the message “buffering” appears as the video loads. The time it takes for the video to load depends on your computer, your Internet connection, and the length of the video.

Tip 

For best video viewing, you should have a broadband connection to the Internet. While it is possible to watch the videos over a dial-up connection, load times may be long depending on the duration of the video.

Choose a format

Many people are predicting a time when we won’t have computers as we know them now, large things that sit on our desktops serving only as a “computer.” Many people are already using their phones or small handheld devices such as the iPod and PlayStation PSP. With Google Video, you are not restricted to viewing videos on your computer. You have a choice of three formats in which you can download video:

  • Windows/Mac

  • Video iPod

  • Sony PSP

To download, select one of the formats from the drop-down list next to the Download button. Once you select a format, click Download to begin transferring the video. You should refer to your documentation for information about transferring a video to your handheld device once it downloads to your computer.

Buffering saves time

For longer videos or slower Internet connections, you don’t have to wait for the entire video to load before you can start playing it on your computer. The video begins playing when enough of it downloads to begin playing, hopefully uninterrupted, as the rest of the video continues to download. This is a process called buffering. You can watch the progress of the video download in comparison to the speed at which the video is playing by watching the status bar of the video player software. You can see in Figure 5.2 that the partially filled bar shows buffering progress while the arrow slider tracks the video play progress.

image from book
Figure 5.2: Track buffering and video play at the same time.

The video display page

The Web page that displays the video contains quite a bit of information and functionality. First, it contains the name of the video. Right beneath the name is a list of stars with a blue background where you can provide your feedback for future viewers of the video. You can rate a video by clicking stars from 1 (Poor) to 5 (Excellent!). You can see an average rating next to yours and the number of people who rated the video.

The video information also includes the name of the person - usually a screen name - of the person who uploaded the video along with the date it was uploaded and the length of the video in minutes and seconds.

In addition to the categories and featured categories discussed earlier, Google has more detailed categories you can browse. Next to the Browse: label you see a number of categories shown as links. These are detailed categories created by other users in which this video falls. This allows you to view other videos similar to this one based on one or more of the detailed user-created categories.

You can also add your own label to create a category in which you think this video best fits. You may go back later to see that other videos have been added to your category. To create your own label, type a new label by clicking on the Add label link. A text box appears where you can type your label, then click Add label. A response pops up under the text box that tells you the label is saved.

Using the Playlist

The Playlist provides useful functions and information about the video. For example, clicking the Details link presents a sequence of images from the video. If you click different images, the progress bar beneath the video advances to a different time within the video. This works in the same way as a DVD menu that allows you to start from different scenes in a movie.

When you want Google Video to act like a video jukebox, you can configure Google to continuously play the next video as though you had manually clicked the Next video link. Find the Continuous Feedback On or Off configuration setting. Click On to begin continuous play. Stop continuous play by clicking Off.

Click the From user link to see a list of any other videos on the Google site by the same user that posted the video you are viewing. A list of videos appears if the user has posted any other videos.

Clicking the Related link shows you other videos that Google believes are similar or related to the video you are viewing. Clicking on one of the related videos takes you to the detail page of a different video. Use your browser’s Back button to return to the video you were viewing previously.

The Comments link loads user comments and reviews. You can write your own comments about the video and rate it in number of stars. Simply click on the stars until the number of them you would like to appear are highlighted. Type your name or alias and then type your comment. Click Publish to post your comment for others to see.

You can navigate to the next or previous video by clicking either the Previous or Next video links.

Let others know

Once you see a video, you may want to let others know about it. When you view videos in Google’s Top 100 you can send e-mail and blog posts to let others know how to view the video and what you thought of it.

Send a blog post

You can send a post to one of a number of different blog sites about the video. You can post to MySpace, Blogger, LiveJournal, or TypePad by selecting the site you want to post to, as shown in Figure 5.3. You can send a link to the video by clicking the Embed HTML link. The HTML necessary to access this video is automatically embedded in the text box below. You can copy and paste that HTML link into your own Web page to present that video from your own Web page.

image from book
Figure 5.3: Select which blog site you want to log in to, and add your username and password.

E-mail this video

You can choose to send an e-mail notification with a link to the video to others. They receive an e-mail message telling them that their friend has sent them the following Google video. You can type your own customized message to accompany the notification. You aren’t sending the entire video in e-mail, only a link to it, so don’t worry that you are sending a huge file.



Google Power Tools Bible
Google Power Tools Bible
ISBN: 0470097124
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 353

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net