Google Video being retired - impact for Blogger?

If you upload a video through the icon in Blogger's Post Editor, it is stored in Google Videos - and AFAIK the only way to access it is via Blogger.

Google have now announced that :

Later this summer [August 2012], all remaining hosted video on Google Video will be moved to YouTube. Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009 and now we’re moving the remaining hosted content to YouTube as private videos.

You can manage the videos uploaded to Google Video using http://www.google.com/video/upload/Status

Consequences:

My first thought was that if you have a blog with videos uploaded before the Post-editor switched over to use <<whatever else>> for videos, then these will stop working, because the location will be incorrect when your videos are migrated.

But some initial testing makes me think this isn't right, I just tried loading this video to a test blog.

Looking at the Google Videos status page referred to in the article didn't show it - or any videos, even though I know there are a few on my travel blog from 2007. Examining the HTML behind the post didn't give any clues, it just looks like this:

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <object class="BLOG_video_class" contentid="4b6e060e39565a4a" height="266" id="BLOG_video-4b6e060e39565a4a" width="320"></object></div>

But then I viewed the page and examined the source. It has gems like this:

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object width="320" height="266" class="BLOG_video_class" id="BLOG_video-4b6e060e39565a4a" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/get_player">
<param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF">
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true">
<param name="flashvars" value="flvurl=http://redirector.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D4b6e060e39565a4a%26itag%3D5%26source%3Dblogger%26app%3Dblogger%26cmo%3Dsensitive_content%253Dyes%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1343576696%26sparams%3Did,itag,source,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D81F0B23AAD667B6DFA253D870F9291421C511D1.14E0BA9FA0741AD193482CC06CEA121F670BDBE%26key%3Dck1&iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D4b6e060e39565a4a%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3Djlmosd6i-dm_mUe5oOEcYFhrGm4&autoplay=0&ps=blogger">
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/get_player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
width="320" height="266" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
flashvars="flvurl=http://redirector.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D4b6e060e39565a4a%26itag%3D5%26source%3Dblogger%26app%3Dblogger%26cmo%3Dsensitive_content%253Dyes%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1343576696%26sparams%3Did,itag,source,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D81F0B23AAD667B6DFA253D870F9291421C511D1.14E0BA9FA0741AD193482CC06CEA121F670BDBE%26key%3Dck1&iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D4b6e060e39565a4a%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3Djlmosd6i-dm_mUe5oOEcYFhrGm4&autoplay=0&ps=blogger"
allowFullScreen="true" /></object>
<a href="rtsp://v4.cache5.googlevideo.com/ChoLENy73wIaEQlKWlY5DgZuSxMYDSANFEgDDA==/0/0/0/video.3gp" type="video/3gpp"><img width="320" height="266" alt="video" src="http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app=blogger&contentid=4b6e060e39565a4a&offsetms=5000&itag=w160&sigh=jlmosd6i-dm_mUe5oOEcYFhrGm4" class="BLOG_mobile_video_class" id="BLOG_mobile_video-4b6e060e39565a4a"></a></div

The bit I've put in bold ( flvurl=http://redirector.googlevideo.com/videoplayback ) makes me think that they've coded around this, so (a bit like Friend Connect) Blogger users are the one exception to the "Google Video is bring turned off" rule, and that we don't have to worry about suddenly losing videos from pre 2009.

I'd like a bit more detail though, since this issue isn't covered in the Google announcement at all.

Fingers crossed it all works ok.

I'm very interested in hearing about any more research / answers you find about this change. You know where the comment form is, please use it and share what you know!

One last thought:

Videos that you added to Google Videos yourself

If you do have videos on your blog that you manually loaded to Google Videos and then put into your blog, you can either:

Download them yourself, move them to a new location in YouTube, and edit your blog-post to use this new location, OR
Wait for Google to move the videos, then go into YouTube and make them public (not private), and then edit your blog-post to point to the new location.

That said, if you happen to have transferred ownership of your blog from another account to yours, and you no longer have access to that other Google account, then you have a problem: You cannot access them now through the link (becasue it's not your current account that owns them), and they will be transferred to YouTube as private videos under that other account: you will still have no way to access them, and the link will change.

The only option would be to somehow make a copy of the video using the existing vid in Google Videos via your blog - and do it before 20 August. Good luck.