Google videos is shutting down

[Pentium100]

On April 29, 2011 videos that have been uploaded to Google Video will no longer be available for playback. We’ve added a Download button to the Video Status page, so you can download videos that you want to save. If you don’t want to download your videos, you don’t need to do anything. (The Download feature will be disabled after May 13, 2011.)

How do I download videos that I've uploaded?
On the Video Status page, click Download Video located on the right side of each of your videos in the "Actions" column.Once a video has been downloaded, an "Already Downloaded" message will appear. If you have many videos on Google Video, you may need to use the paging controls located on the bottom right of the page to access them all. This download option will be available through May 13, 2011.

I've downloaded my videos. Now what do I do with these FLV files?
FLV files are videos that have been encoded in the Flash Video Format. You can upload your videos in FLV format to other video hosting sites like YouTube or Picassa Web Albums. If you would like to playback your videos on your computer and they don’t seem to be working, you might need to install an FLV player. In order to find an FLV player to install, try doing a Google search for [ FLV player ].

If you want to help archive all videos, please go to http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Google_Video

BakaBT users should have some spare hard drive space and good connections

[Xtras]

I don't get why they don't just transfer all of it to youtube. I mean Google owns Youtube doesn't it? I thought that site was a Google service.

[Pentium100]

I don't get why they don't just transfer all of it to youtube. I mean Google owns Youtube doesn't it? I thought that site was a Google service.

Either there is some law that says otherwise (I doubt it) or Google just does not care.

[blubart]

Either there is some law that says otherwise (I doubt it)...

thats quite possibly the case. by uploading your video to google videos you accepted their ToS which likely specified something along the line that you give them the right to "distribute" the specific video on their platform.
if they would just move everything over to YouTube (with a different ToS) they might be vulnerable against legal actions initiated by an uploader for whatever reason - as they are technically only allowed to host the video under the google video brand and ToS.

[Pentium100]

I think that Google ToS is like any other Tos - "we can do whatever we want including changing the ToS when we want"

[pingryanime]

I think that Google ToS is like any other Tos - "we can do whatever we want including changing the ToS when we want"

Google Video ToS upon agreeing:

blablabla
blablabla
You agree to allow Google Videos to host your videos
blablablabl
blablabla
ToS subject to change without notice.


New Google Video ToS a few days before everything gets removed:

blablabla
blablabla
Oh btw the old ToS was a lie, we're moving everything to youtube whether you like it or not
blablabla
blablabla
ToS subject to change without notice.

[datora]

.
What kills on this one ... it's not that google could or should just move everything to youtube.  The point is valid, they may well be protecting themselves legally.  Well, in addition to the recovery of several tens of thousands of terabytes of drive space that can now be re-purposed.

No.  What I don't get is they don't offer account holders to switch their content to a youtube account directly, especially in bulk, instead of making everyone download everything just so they can upload it again ... 

WTF?  Took me 10 seconds to think of that and probably take a talented coder about 30 minutes to build a quick transfer tool for those who would want to use it.  Would do little more than assign new domian/path/filename and and virtually no data transfer would have to take place at all.

teh g00glez has finally gone full fucktard.  Must have hired some unemployed microsoft managers to "handle" the project.

[Pentium100]

Yea, but that's what you get when you trust your data to some company.

Now, let's say that moving the videos to youtube is not possible and keeping them here costs money, so how about providing access for people to download those videos? No. Google did not even give a list of all the videos. That would have been easy to do. But no, the lists have to be generated the hard way...

[Freedom Kira]

No.  What I don't get is they don't offer account holders to switch their content to a youtube account directly, especially in bulk, instead of making everyone download everything just so they can upload it again ... 

I'm not quite sure I understand. In case you didn't know, you can use your Google account to sign in to YouTube. They're pretty much interchangeable, even - if you do sign in to YouTube, you stay signed in on Google too.

There's probably some other, more subtle, underlying reason why they're doing this. Perhaps they are trying to purge their servers of old videos that get no attention by forcing users to re-up videos that they want to keep online.

[NaRu]

They cant upload google videos onto youtube because the Youtube isnt called Google videos. Its a name thing. In the license agreement when using google videos it doesnt say they can transfer the video to a different service.

[dogsinafen]

I liked google videos. You could find some great things that youtube does not have.

[Pentium100]

We won! Google will not remove the videos.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/04/update-on-google-video-finding-easier.html

[Freedom Kira]

We won? I didn't know we were fighting for something.

[Pentium100]

We won? I didn't know we were fighting for something.

"We" as in "I and others" - the people who were archiving the videos. So, we were downloading the videos to preserve them, and actually got google to do it for us, so no more downloading is necessary, however the videos that were downloaded (around 26% of total) will be archived.