Video Search Gets Serious

09/10/2008 Video search is about to get a huge upgrade, courtesy of a new site called VideoSurf. Even YouTube, what many average users would consider to be the premiere site for searching videos, has problems nailing down relevant results sometimes. The main issue with video search (along with image search) has been the fact that the search engines generally use text associated with the videos to come up with results VideoSurf actually gets into the videos themselves on a frame by frame basis. VideoSurf is one of the most innovative, radically different approaches to video search (or any kind of search for that matter) VideoSurf is a computer vision search engine that processes all of the kinds of information most video search services do, but then goes a step further, applying a proprietary process using "multigrid fast computation" and some heavy-duty computer processing power to analyze videos, identify people, and extract all kinds of additional information directly from the video itself.

VideoSurf was founded by the folks who built one of the first real-time travel information sites, Farechase, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2004. The VideoSurf team applied many of the lessons they learned in working with real-time info in the development of VideoSurf.

You can use keywords to search VideoSurf to provide a rich set of thumbnails that go beyond what you usually see in video search results. VideoSurf "understands" who people are and what they look like, you'll often see images of different people when you limit your search to an individual. This lets you to discover the connections of actors and performers in an incredibly easy, intuitive way. VideoSurf shows you the point in the video that you'd like to see, rather than having to either watch the video or use the slider to jump ahead to what you hope is the most relevant part.
At this point, VideoSurf is only available to the public on an invitation-only basis, although you can request an invitation.
VIA

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