Webware

There comes a time at least once or twice a week where I've got to show a friend or colleague a video clip while away from a computer. To that end, a speedy mobile video search tool can help me get to the clip I need without having to jump through a whole lot of hoops.

This past weekend I spent some time with Avot mV--a relatively new mobile video search service that's reminiscent of Veveo's vtap (coverage 1,2). Both are setup to pull in video from a variety of sources, and both have a search engine that shows results as you type. While Avot mV has a Web portal, users with smart phones are able to install a local app that can load the videos without jettisoning you off your browser. To add to that, the Web version has been optimized for iPhone users, who will find the interface similar to the built-in YouTube application, with top level navigation, and tools to bookmark and share content with others.

The Web interface for Avot is simple to use and fast, as long as you've got a good mobile connection.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The real draw to Avot mV is its presentation. The service employs a small array of video thumbnails to give you a brief overview of content, and clicking on any of them will give you information like source, runtime, and user ratings to help you decide whether or not you want to play it. There's also a great categories section with thumbnails, that's especially good for comedy clips, and footage from various political debates from earlier this year.

Unlike vtap, most of the content from Avot mV seems to be prefetched, as it loads up almost right away without any kind of re-encoding. The result is high speed and quality, as long as you're using your phone's Wi-Fi, or have a 3G data connection. EDGE users will have to tolerate a noticeably less speedy experience, although both the Web and local versions have a pretty decent cache setup that will remember the last few screens you were on enough not to have to reload the thumbnails.

So considering the two services are so similar, which one takes the cake for search? Unfortunately for Avot, vtap came out on top with some head-to-head testing. While Avot was able to find some really popular viral videos I plugged in, more obscure Web startup names and video titles didn't seem to be in Avot's index--which is something you could blame on the amount of sources it's working from. Regardless, I think Avot mV is worth bookmarking or installing on your phone if you're the type of person who's looking for a quick fix, as Avot's speed is truly impressive. If you're interested in giving the service a spin, there's a live embedded demo over at Avot's main page.

Ben Wilson over at iPhone Atlas (one of our CNET sister sites) wrote a post earlier today about how Veveo's vTap service for the iPhone is "possibly the best iPhone Web app yet," citing its on the fly-encoding and killer UI as worthy reasons to use it over the iPhone's built-in YouTube application. The service searches videos from all over the Net and lets users watch them on the iPhone after converting them to an acceptable format on their own servers.

We checked out the Windows Mobile version of the app back in August, and since then the iPhone version seems to have been tightened up a bit. Loading videos is still unbearably slow over EDGE (which isn't vTap's problem), but if you're on a fast connection over Wi-Fi, it's really one of the best ways to view videos from all over the internet. Besides YouTube, you're getting videos from Google and MSN Video, Vimeo, the Weather Channel, Dailymotion, and a dozen of other sources.

There are two things that I think make the app really fantastic for iPhone owners. The first is that it will serve us abstracts from RSS feeds while you're waiting for a video to finish re-encoding. You can actually set up which feeds you want to see, including Newsvine, Yahoo Finance, Google News, or the latest publicly shared photos from Flickr. Clicking any of these feeds will take you right to the story or photo link while the video continues to encode. The second best part is that you can choose only to listen to the audio from a video clip, which means you can enjoy long, dialogue-heavy clips with your phone's screen off and in your pocket--which is super handy for enjoying shared lecture videos.

I got a demo today of a new mobile video search product called Vtap, from Veveo. It's hardly the only video search engine out there (see Blinkx, Truveo [review], and Google), but it has special powers on mobile devices. In fact, it's mobile-only. Despite a Web-based version that the company created for the iPhone, you can't access the service on a non-mobile browser.

Vtap search on a smartphone: Better results than other video search engines.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

CEO Murali Aravamudan told me that his service does not dive into the actual audio or video content of files to create its search index. Rather, it uses the metadata (tags, and text on the page where the file is hosted) to create its video index. This method seems to work just fine. Vtap returns outstanding results. In my tests, it found more good hits than any other engine I used, regarless of platform. It also returns results as you type, and does a very good job ranking results even with incomplete queries.

I spent time with the Vtap app (a download) on my Blackjack. The live search makes it very fast to use, and the player does a good job playing most video formats you'll find on the Web. The app also has a tab to search Wikipedia, a nice bonus.

The player streams most online video types.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

On the iPhone, the Web-based Vtap user experience is less compelling, although the search results are the same. I found the interface clunkier and response time slower, even on when connected over WiFi (forget about it on the iPhone's EDGE network). Also, the iPhone doesn't have native support for all the formats Windows phones do, so some files have to be transcoded on Vtap's servers before they will play, which puts a click-and-wait delay into the system.

The Vtap service will be released on September 10th. If you have a Windows smartphone or an Apple iPhone, I highly recommend going to the site now to sign up for a reminder. This service rocks.

I pressed Aravamudan on his plans for a Web site accessible to desktop and laptop users, and he was adamant about not wanting to get into that business. But he did let on that his company will follow up with a Web-based video search site a few weeks after the mobile version is released. Veveo also sells its technology to device manufacturers and to cable TV operators.