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Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

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41–50 of 138 posts

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#41
post #3

Nice! Is it possible to do it without fixing the channel?

YouTube doesn't provide a way to search all of YouTube based on the spoken words in videos, unfortunately. I could update VideoMentions Search to allow users to select multiple channels, and then perform the search across all of those. Like maybe maybe auto-importing all the channels they're subscribed to could be useful. One way or another though, it would still require selecting specific channels to search within.…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#42

Hey HN! I just launched VideoMentions Search, a free tool that allows you to search YouTube to find videos that contain specific spoken words. Here's how to quickly try it out - Let's say you want to find every video on The Verge's YouTube channel within the last several months in which "MacBook Pro" is mentioned. Here's a pre-populated search to accomplish that: https://videomentions.com/search?channelUrl=https%253A…

This looks super cool! There's a need for tools to make the millions of videos on the web actually useful for people like me who would much rather skim search and read than watch. Bravo to you for making a stab at it!

I'm guessing you need a specific channel as a way of getting a list of videos, then pulling the captioning, then searching? (That's the only reason I could think of for the channel restriction, which unfortunately removes 90% of the utility)

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#43

Are we sure YouTube doesn't already do this? Often I have searched for a video while only remembering a certain phrase or even a certain comment left under it, and YouTube was able to actually find it

They do... contents of speech are one of multiple input data to youtube indexing.

Also you can search individual videos by showing transcript and pressing ctrl-f

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#44
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - You remember watching a video where a certain topic was discussed, and now you're trying to remember which video it was to rewatch it. But I need to remember which channel I watched? Maybe I'm missing something, but in my eyes it would make it tremendously more useful if I didn't have to specify channel.

Yeah, YouTube doesn't provide a way to search all of YouTube based on the spoken words in videos. I could update VideoMentions Search to allow users to select multiple channels, and then perform the search across all of those (maybe importing all the channels they're subscribed to could be handy... ). One way or another though, it would still require selecting specific channels to search within. That limitation notwi…

I get why you wouldn’t be able to index all of YouTube, that’s a big ask.

However, I don’t use YouTube enough to mess w channels much. I’m usually searching on a particular topic.

For example, “drop ceiling panel replacement.”

Perhaps you could help users limit the channel scope by making an intelligent channel selection by keyword.

So I would put in “home improvement,” and you could choose some appropriate channels to search for my search terms.

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#45

Hey HN! I just launched VideoMentions Search, a free tool that allows you to search YouTube to find videos that contain specific spoken words. Here's how to quickly try it out - Let's say you want to find every video on The Verge's YouTube channel within the last several months in which "MacBook Pro" is mentioned. Here's a pre-populated search to accomplish that: https://videomentions.com/search?channelUrl=https%253A…

How are you sourcing the text for the videos? This search [1] grabs some results for my query, but it does miss this [2] video which contains the searched keyword multiple times, and the video's subtitles indicates as much.

[1] https://videomentions.com/search?channelUrl=https%253A%252F%...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3denP7wX2XU&t=296s

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#46

One of the consequences of the effectiveness of click-bait titles on youtube is that searching for videos you watched historically is extremely difficult, because quite often the primary thing in the video is never mentioned in the title. The descriptions are almost universally used to store common links that are about the channel not the video and the consequence of this is that click-bait titled content is very har…

Also, the youtube built in search often fails to match videos that have a word in the title for which you search for.

Unreasonable of you to expect search to be good in a Google product.

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#47
Hi, Great job. I was almost about to build such a thing before I realized the crazy amount of crawling and transcriptions that I have to index.

How exactly did you solve/approach the problem?

1. How did you crawl across those millions of videos from the platform?

2. How are you indexing stuff like that

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, YouTube doesn't provide a way to search all of YouTube based on the spoken words in videos. I could update VideoMentions Search to allow users to select multiple channels, and then perform the search across all of those (maybe importing all the channels they're subscribed to could be handy... ). One way or another though, it would still require selecting specific channels to search within. That limitation notwi…

Could you do a search based on their watch history if they have it enabled?

That'd certainly be useful

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#49
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - You remember watching a video where a certain topic was discussed, and now you're trying to remember which video it was to rewatch it. But I need to remember which channel I watched? Maybe I'm missing something, but in my eyes it would make it tremendously more useful if I didn't have to specify channel.

Yeah, YouTube doesn't provide a way to search all of YouTube based on the spoken words in videos. I could update VideoMentions Search to allow users to select multiple channels, and then perform the search across all of those (maybe importing all the channels they're subscribed to could be handy... ). One way or another though, it would still require selecting specific channels to search within. That limitation notwi…

Do you cache the channel, search term, and results for faster more efficient responses later?

Re: Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos

#50

Hi, Great job. I was almost about to build such a thing before I realized the crazy amount of crawling and transcriptions that I have to index. How exactly did you solve/approach the problem? 1. How did you crawl across those millions of videos from the platform? 2. How are you indexing stuff like that

Bump. Would like the lowdown too!
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