Search engine Google launched a video search facility this week that enables users to find online footage of recent TV shows.
Google Video is running as a beta, or trial, version and trawls through a selection of shows that Google began indexing in December 2004. Current sources include broadcasters Fox News, the NBA, PBS and C-SPAN.
Users search by keyword and the engine returns up to five video stills and relevant text sections in a preview page.
"What Google did for the web, Google Video aims to do for television," said Google co-founder Larry Page.
"Users can search the content of TV programs for anything, see relevant thumbnails, and discover where and when to watch matching television programmes."