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VideoSurf Firefox Extension: An Essential Tool if You Watch Web Video

Here's one of the more useful Firefox extensions I've tried out in a while: VideoSurf. (Hat tip to Webware for calling it out, and noting that it originated as a Greasemonkey script.)  You'll find it especially good if you consume a lot of web-based video at sites such as YouTube and Google. In addition to the standard thumbnails to start videos that you get when you search at, say, YouTube, VideoSurf gives you a time-stamped series of chronological thumbnail images from the video. The extracted thumbnails let you jump to any point instantly. Here's how it looks.

Below is the YouTube citation for the video of the U.S. Airways flight landing in the Hudson river. The top thumbnail is YouTube's standard one, and the timeline of thumbnail images below that show the VideoSurf-supplied chronological snapshots of the scene. I can jump right to the plane hitting the water, or watch footage from before or after:

 

Below is the YouTube video for Nirvana's song Smells Like Teen Spirit. The thumbnail up top is the standard one YouTube supplies to start the video, but the time-stamped chronological thumbnails below that will start from various points in the video when I click on them.

 

Did you happen to see Santonio Holmes' game-winning touchdown catch for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl? Afterward, he did a little homage to basketball star LeBron James' celebration routine. Here's what a VideoSurf-driven timeline of chronological thumbnails looks like after I went into Google and searched for "Super Bowl Santonio Holmes video." I can skip easily to the various points in the celebration using the visual cues:

VideoSurf works with Firefox versions up to beta 2 of version 3.1, which I'm running it in. It works with video housed on the following sites and pages:

- Google Search

- Youtube Search

- Youtube Home Page

- Youtube Video Page

- Yahoo! Search

- FriendFeed

Among additional features the extension offers, you can choose to have all HD-compatible videos on YouTube play in high quality (or HD). When you first install VideoSurf and try it, go to YouTube first to see how it automatically creates its timelines when you get search results back there. How it works is a little less intuitive on Google. There, you don't get the timelines when searching in Google Video, but you do if you just type in a search like "Super Bowl Santonio Holmes video" at Google's home page. I'd like to see this extension do what it does within YouTube directly within the video sections of Google Video and Yahoo! Video--automating the thumbnails for all searches there.

Still, very shortly after I tried this extension I knew it was a keeper. If you consume web video content frequently, check VideoSurf out. It's a time-saver and an enjoyment booster.
 

• firefox
• youtube
• VideoSurf

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