Live from the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Google Inc. announced the planned opening of the Google Video Store, the first open video marketplace enabling consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from a major television network, a professional sports league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers. This fast growing collection of videos will include prime-time and classic hits from CBS, a full slate of NBA games from this season and outstanding performances from the past, music videos from SONY BMG, Charlie Rose interviews as well as news and historical content from ITN and new titles being added everyday.
“Google video will let you watch lots of high quality video on the web for the first time. You can search and browse, and we make it fast and easy for you to watch,” said Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and president, Products. “For video producers and anyone with a video camera, Google Video will give you a platform to publish to the entire Google audience in a fast, free and seamless way.”
Available soon, people who visit the Google Video homepage at http://video.google.com will be able to browse listings of video by category from the store or search Google’s entire collection of videos by simply entering keywords into the search box.
“This is yet another exciting platform in which CBS can leverage its market-leading content to a whole new audience,” said Leslie Moonves, President and CEO, CBS Corporation in the press release. “Making our programming accessible to the Google Video Store guarantees our shows significant new exposure to millions of users who are likely to access this Web service and who may not be traditional TV viewers. As the industry’s most prolific generator of popular TV content, it’s only natural that CBS would partner with Google on this service, which is destined to become one of the web’s most popular destinations.”
CBS’s current primetime hits will include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS, Survivor and The Amazing Race. Library classics will include I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Have Gun Will Travel, Mannix, My Three Sons, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. All CBS programs will be presented commercial free.
Google Video will also feature NBA games from this season and some of the greatest individual performances in NBA history. Marking the first time NBA fans can purchase full NBA contests on the Web, each NBA game for the rest of this season, including the NBA Playoffs and The Finals, will be available to fans in its entirety 24 hours after the contest’s conclusion. In addition, the highest scoring games of several of the NBA’s best players will be available including Kobe Bryant’s 62 point performance in three quarters vs. Dallas last month.
“Google’s innovative presentation of information and content is revolutionizing the way people access media,” said NBA Commissioner David Stern in the press release. “In the increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world of entertainment, Google Video provides us with a new way to deliver the NBA experience to our fans when and how they want it.”
Additional highlights of Google’s video collection will include:
• Music videos from SONY BMG. The line-up of launch videos includes offerings from some of SONY BMG’s global superstar artists, including Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, Kenny Chesney, Destiny’s Child, Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Lil’ Flip, Jessica Simpson, Shakira, System of a Down, Switchfoot, Usher, and many more.
• Feature Length Independent Films from Greencine.com. Including works by legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda (Zemsta), documentary filmmaker Ted Bonnitt (Mau Mau Sex Sex) and independent actor/director Caveh Zahedi (In the Bathtub of the World).
• Historic, news and educational footage from ITN. This material ranges from coverage of key events in 2005 such as the Pope John Paul II’s death, back to a recording of the 1896 coronation of Tsar Nicholas II – one of the earliest known pieces of moving imagery.
• Charlie Rose interviews. Including interviews with Henry Kissinger, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Martha Stewart, Martin Scorsese, Harrison Ford, Dan Rather, Charles M. Schulz, Steve Jobs, Jay Leno, Tom Brokaw, and others.
• Cartoon classics from Classic Media. Featuring many of the world’s most famous animated series such as “Felix the Cat,” “Casper The Friendly Ghost,” and “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”
• Children’s educational programming from Clearvue. Educational video topics vary from teen education on tattoos to explanations about the workings of the human brain.
• Cartoon classics from Classic Media and children’s educational programming from Clearvue. Google Video also offers many of the world’s most famous animated series such as “Felix the Cat,” “Casper The Friendly Ghost,” and “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” Educational video topics from Clearvue vary from teen education on tattoos to explanations about the workings of the human brain.
• Clips from Getty Images’ Archive Films Collection. A diverse collection of short clips that capture personalities, moments and eras throughout history – selected from vintage newsreels and educational film, as well as contemporary news and events from around the world.
There will be thousands of titles for sale in the Google Video Store with more titles added everyday. The list of content producers will also include a broad range of entertainment and educational partners including among others, Blue Highways TV, CareTALK, Fashion TV, Here! TV, HDNet, Hilarious Picks, Image Entertainment, iWatchNow.com, Kantola Productions, MediaZone, Plum TV, Porchlight Entertainment, SOFA Entertainment, Teen Kids, Trinity Broadcasting Network, WGBH, Wheels TV, and Wilderness Film India Ltd.
Launched early last year, Google Video is the first open video marketplace where any video producer, large or small, can upload their content and distribute it for free or at a price. Video prices are set by the content provider with no minimum or maximum dollar-limit. Owners also have the choice to offer their content with or without copy protection – enabling them greater control over its distribution.
Additionally, content from Google Video can be viewed with a new player that can be downloaded for free from any playback page. It offers all the traditional playback options (play, pause, stop…) as well as a “thumbnail” navigation feature that enables users to browse through an entire video, or frames at a time, with a simple click of their mouse.
iPod and Sony Playstation Portable users will also be able to download and watch any non-copy-protected content from Google Video, and even get it specially optimized for playback on their devices. Google Video Store will be available throughout the world, however purchasing premium content in the Google Video Store will only be available in the U.S.
According to Google Video help:
In order to playback video on Google Video, you simply need to have Macromedia Flash Player 7.0+ installed on your computer. Once installed, you will be able to playback the video from within your browser.
If you don’t have a Flash Player plug-in installed on your computer, you can download it from the Macromedia website and install it on your system.
The minimum system requirements for running the Google Video Viewer properly are:
– Windows 2000 or higher with latest updates installed
– Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
– Firefox 1.1+, IE 5.0+, or Safari 1.0+
Also, please note that a broadband connection with 500+ Kbps is required for continuous playback on Google Video.
If you have Macromedia Flash Player 7.0+ installed, you’ll be able to watch any videos in the search results that feature a play button in the image thumbnail.
Note: No Brady Bunch for you! Anything with DRM from Google will be incompatible with 30+million iPods and counting. There is also no Mac Google Video player currently, but Google promises one “soon.” The Google DRM also imposes a major restriction: the CBS shows, NBA games, and any other material protected by Google’s DRM can only be watched on a computer that’s connected to the Internet.
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Doesnt seem like theres enough content to put up much of a fight.
I don’t like disliking Google, but the only way they are gonna beat Apple, is if they make prices significantly lower.
To be honest, I dont actually mind this store, as long as it doesnt support Windows Based Players, or WMVs. Euch!
MW=’ten’ as in this will seems pitifull on January 10!
It appears the only portable devices that can play the content will have to support MPEG4 … as is says iPod and PSP … works for me
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So what format are we talking here?
Flash and Google could end up nailing QuickTime and Apple. Files are tight and the medium is prevalent…
We shall wait and see.
Poor Miscrosoft.
Apple on one side, Google on the other.
Two can survive. But can MS? Better stick to Office.
“Flash and Google could end up nailing QuickTime and Apple. Files are tight and the medium is prevalent…”
Please don’t forget that EVERY iPod includes and requires iTunes to lad music on it. iTunes, in turn, requires QuickTime. The QT+iTunes combo is in no threat.
Not to mention that iTunes and/or QuickTime is free on its own anyway (like Flash)
“Two can survive. But can MS? Better stick to Office.”
With OpenOffice, MS could lose that too (at least a little).
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You TRULY have to be OD’d on Kool-Aid to not see the threat this poses. Just by sheer volume of page visits to Google, Apple better <seriously> continue to pull rabbits out of hats. The only saving grace is that Google apps usually stay in beta for like forever.
As I’ve been saying all along, Apple should have licensed FairPlay. Nobody’s gonna take Apple’s dominance sitting down, and Apple will ultimately end up the loser. Maybe not this year or next year, but 5 years down the line.
Hey, they support the Mac. That’s all I needed to hear. I’m a Mac zealot, but for the platform. As long as my Mac isn’t marginalized, I’m a happy camper. Apple doesn’t have to win every battle, so long as the Mac platform keeps fighting the war. So the thought of another Mac-friendly video store is very appealing to me.
Google vs. iTunes should shape up to be an interesting battle. The computer platforms have been removed as an issue — both work on both Mac and Windows, so there’s a chance for other issues to be clearly decided:
— Google places no restrictions on price. Will most videos be priced higher than iTunes’ $1.99, or less? How will that price affect sales?
— Google does not require DRM. How much video content will be offered DRM-free?
— Google will not transfer copy-protected videos to a portable player. iTunes lets you put anything on a video iPod. How much of an effect will that have? How big a factor is the video iPod in video sales?
This will be a big help to the non-iPod makers.
Competition is heating up – with more competition the only one that wins is us consumers!
I disagree that this is a big help to producers of non-iPod mp3 players. This is just more content for us to play on our ipods!!!! I think this will help Apple and its customers.
Bill Gates can go to hell!!
I honestly don’t think Google is competing with Apple, I think we have an ally here, for now. Apple should watch Google closely to be sure. The question is at the moment, what does Google use for servers to run the show? Is it on a windoze platform what? I’m very curious as to what road Google is planning for the future.
MDN MW call
Call me crazy but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sometime in the future using Apple products to run their services. If not already so.
Of course comes the question of copy protected content.
Who’s and how many of who’s copy protection schemes is Goggle going to support?
After all not many will offer their content without it.
What is Apple going to do? license “Fairplay” to Googe?
Rob Apple of iTunes in the process?
You know all these companies are racing to control video content, but still watching movies on my 2″ iPod screen is horrible and a desperate act.
You must have a 30″ monitor or bigger to be able to watch content comfortably across the room and replace your TV.
Oh then of course comes HDCP, so right now no good HD content until Intel based Mactels comes out, combined with DRM chips in the Apple monitors.
THIS SHIT ROCKS!!!!
Holarious stuff, in pure Google fashion. I love it.
MacDude: My guess is that Google rolled their own DRM, otherwise it would be Windows-only, wouldn’t it? I can’t see Google tying any service of theirs to a proprietary Microsoft format. The two companies are practically at war.
MacTypeDude – Google is using Linux in their data centers.
Anybody see those wretched presentations at CES.
The Google CEO…..worst ever. Their product ain’t the cat’s meow either.
Page: This is the Google video player. We downloaded a movie to save time. Downloads are pretty fast….blah blah blah.
Lame.
More lameness here on MDN. A freakin “Window’s systyem status” alert advertising a Toshiba M3 laptop.
Looks like they don’t have it totally setup and functional.
The quality is very low.
Unless they up the quality of the video stream this will be dead in the water.
Also couldn’t download the selections- at least not yet.
How are they going to collect for the Sony video’s?
Looks like there are still a lot of open questions?
This will fail.
Even Google does not get it. Apple will TROUNCE them. Google does not understand that without the end-to-end its a big ‘no-go’ on something like providing digital video content.
They are like Real, Napster, Yahoo!, and all of the rest of them. You have to have a hardware component in the game, integrated player and DRM, and retail presence.
Will enjoy watching them receive their lessons from the Jobs.
I am not going to give Google any of my money. They have positioned themselves as an awesome FREE internet tool and noW they are trying to become the next amazon and Apple. Free video supported by ads will do, but paying for google content… nope.
After getting Napster content free for about 2 years, there was no way I would have paid for it once they went legit.
Google = Napster with a high stock price and good engineers.
You’re wrong about this being Apple friendly. What this article doesn’t mention is that there IS DRM involved in any download which is charged for, as opposed to being provided for free, by the producer.
The DRM scheme is a proprietary GOOGLE invention, runs on Windows only, and is NOT.. I repeat NOT Mac (or iPod) compatible.