What Is the Difference Between Google Video & YouTube?

Google Videos, formerly Google Video, was a video search engine website launched by Google Incorporated in January 2005. Originally, the website allowed you to upload free videos to be shared and cross-referenced over the Internet. Freely searchable videos such as amateur productions, viral media, and movie trailers were among the most common content types you could discover on Google Videos. Google Videos listed results for videos hosted on other sites not owned by Google Inc., such as GoFish, Myspace and Yahoo Video.

YouTube is a video-sharing website enabling you to watch videos on the Web for free. The website was first launched in February 2005 as a venture-funded technology start-up company by three former PayPal employees. YouTube was acquired by Google Inc. in 2006, and videos hosted by YouTube became searchable via Google Videos in 2007. In 2012, Google Inc. moved Google Videos content to its YouTube hosting-service.

Google Videos originally limited video uploads to 100MB per file with a maximum resolution of 480x360 pixels. This resolution was increased to the 720p standard before all content was migrated to YouTube in 2012. YouTube originally offered videos in low resolution, 320x240 pixels, with mono audio via MP3 file extensions. Currently, YouTube supports video files with resolutions up to 2048x1536 pixels but has made preparations to support the new 4K video compression which outputs video at 4096x3072. YouTube allows users to upload videos up to 15 minutes in length and a maximum of 20GB in size. Lengthier videos up to 12 hours apiece may be uploaded once an account has been verified. You may verify your account using your mobile phone via YouTube's Community Guidelines.

Google Videos services were distributed on its website via hyper-text markup language containing flash video, AVI and MP4 file extensions. Google Video Player was a downloadable application for Windows and Mac OS X enabling you to play Google Videos on your desktop. The player was removed in 2007, and Google Videos turned its focus to Flash, AVI and MP4 file extensions. YouTube is available on a wide range of platforms including mobile devices, smart televisions and players, and video game consoles. YouTube uses HTML version 5 which eliminates the need to use Adobe Flash Player making the site widely accessible via different Web browsers. You may download some videos from YouTube for free or for purchase through Google's payment system, Google Wallet. YouTube also provides the ability to mark your videos with a Creative Commons license -- supporting redistribution of work for non-commercial purposes.