LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Spring 2010)

Now that Google has created an automated closed captioning on English language videos in youtube, is that closed captioning text going to be indexed through Google? ( I know the automatic captioning still has difficulties)

I know a great example of captions searching in videos is Hulu's own http://www.hulu.com/labs/captions-search, at least I have found it impressive.

That interactive transcript is very cool.

Not as cool but also useful:

YouTube has enabled deep linking within videos. A URL for a YouTube video can include a time tag to link to a particular moment within the video. With a little work, you could use that feature to provide your own interactive transcript of a YouTube video.

The word metadata comes to mind when I think about how still images, screencasts or videos are indexed. Whenever we view images in Photoshop, we are able to see the metadata about each image: the camera used, the precise date and time the photograph was taken, the exposure settings, ISO, shutter speed and other camera variables. Images can be named with appropriate titles, and all the metadata can be indexed and used for retrieval by a search engine.

Video is a bit different, and although I know very little about video indexing, a quick search showed that the metadata fields can be automated or better accomplished by human authoring. According to the article, "The cost of human authored metadata, is, therefore, not only lower than automated metadata, but it is also insignificant relative to the overall video production costs." All it takes is that little bit of extra work, and a video can go from being a "black box" as you say to highly visible in terms of SEO (search engine optimization) status.

Thanks for pointing me over to that video.

And thanks for articulating my idea better than I could have--videos make scanning for information very difficult/impossible.  Interactive transcripts are a really fantastic tool, and make the video indexable, something that I had not thought about, and thus searchable.  So many birds, only one stone.

Thanks for tip!

Ryan

That is excellent.

I have a profesor who provides a transcript to vodcasts and I always read the transcript over watching the cast. It takes me less time and I can refer back to the transcript later with out having to wait for the cast to load etc.  Thanks for the link.

Wow, I've been watching the TED videos for ages and was not familiar with the interactive transcripts. Thanks so much for sharing this! It is definitely a good way to allow people like me (who are impatient and love to skim things for the most relevant info) to get the most out of a video without having to watch it all the way through.

That's a great point that videos/screencasts are rarely indexed. Just like many others, I didn't know anything about interactive transcripts. Thanks for putting us on to them! This seems to provide one possible way of helping to index visual content -- I know that's a pretty big issue these days.

This is a really great reminder to try and work with a script for your screencast tutorials. Not only will it make your video flow better, but you will also have a transcript ready to publish. Of course, in instances where you are creating a video featuring a lecture or an interview, it could be helpful to contract out the transcription after the fact.

I actually once had a job doing transcription for reality tv show interviews before they were edited into the show. Fascinating stuff!