From today you can search TV news by what it has been said in them.

A new search engine going live today provides the ability to type any query term and to search for those against the digital audio recordings of major TV news broadcasts. Just as easily as you can search for any topic on Google, so now you can do the same within the TV news universe.

Trevor McDonald, ITN anchorman - photo credit: BBC

Today, TVEyes launches its new Internet TV search engine which allows Internet TV content of major broadcast news sites to be fully searchable via the spoken words utilized in those video segments.

Not only.

TVEyes allows searchers to instantly play segments of video containing their query search terms, without needing to download or stream the full related audio file.

TVEyes is live and running right now, and can be accessed by anyone with a standard browser and Internet connection. TVEyes currently indexes news from six top broadcast news sites (MSNBC.com, Foxnews.com, CNN.com, Reuters.com, BBC.co.uk and CBS.com).

Here more details:

Until now, searching through TV news Web sites hasn't been the rich and effective user experience that many of us had hoped for as most TV broadcast sites only offer search information and results based on the descriptive text associated with each news segment aired.

For lengthy interviews and features, the opportunity to be found by those searching for topics included in those conversations is next to being impossible. Zeroing in on content that is relevant to the searcher can mean long downloads and long waits before even knowing if what you have found is what you were looking for.

TVEyes utilizes its own internal Spoken Word Index just like a text-based word index is generally utilized by any major search engine technology. As mentioned earlier, TVEyes allows immediate playback of the audio snippet at every point where the search query terms submitted are found.

In TVEyes search results page, a thumbnail of the video or a graphic placeholder in the case of an audio-only news item, are accompanied by a small information box showing the duration of the recording snippet that contains the searched terms and the specific point at which you are within it.

The audio and video recording snippet containing your searched terms can then be played back immediately by simply clicking on the video thumbnail, on which, a mini-set of playback controls appear automatically as you hover your mouse onto them.

Clips and news segments, both audio and video, containing the submitted search terms can also be viewed or downloaded in full directly from TVEyes main interface.

TVEyes, is completely free to use and demonstrations of its more advanced Professional version can be also obtained at no cost by contacting TVEyes.

If you are a news site content owner, publishing and distributing video and audio-based content, TVEyes is looking for you. Get in touch with them so that they can start indexing your audio/video news content while making available to anyone searching through TVEyes unique audio-based search gateway.

Related
Read or listen to my interview with TVEyes CEO, David Ives on audio searching.
Search Audio Inside Podcasts, Radio and TV Shows: TVEyes and Podscope
October 5th 2005