Find Media Content with SingingFish

This article about SingingFish is continued from page one.

SingingFish and multimedia requirements

One of the first things you're going to want to do is to figure out what multimedia requirements you'll need to even view or listen to your search results. SingingFish has an informative multimedia requirements page that should help you figure out what you need, or you can check out my basic multimedia technical requirements that will pretty much help you play whatever format of file you choose to open with a minimum of fuss.

In addition, SingingFish offers some good information on streaming vs. downloading, downloading audio or video, and playing audio and video files.

How do I find something on SingingFish?

It's relatively easy to find things on SingingFish. They do suggest that you be as precise as possible: "As with any search engine, the more terms you enter, the more accurate your results will be. Spelling matters, so we've included a suggested spelling feature ("Did you mean...") - located just under the search box - to assist you with common terms."

SingingFish also offers a few search tips to assist you if you're having difficulties finding something in a problem-solution format that is easy to read and practical to apply.

A couple of things to remember when searching SingingFish:

• Singingfish takes things literally - so be specific
• Singingfish does not do stemming (searching for variations of a word based on its root). So, if you enter Spear, you will not get results for Spears.
• Singingfish searches on every word you enter, including little words like "and" and "the."

If you find something that you particularly love on SingingFish, you have the option to save it (SingingFish saves up to 10 searches), or email your search to someone else. Buttons for both of these options appear at the top and the bottom of your search results.

SingingFish Search Examples

Search results are fairly easy to decipher. My search for Maria Callas returned almost 12 pages of results. The first result looked like this:

• "Maria Callas Movie Opens Across US and UK - video" (clickable link)
• Franco Zeffirelli has made a film about his friend and legendary opera singer Maria Callas. 8/2005 Reuters (brief blurb about the clip with a time stamp and original source)
• SOURCE: www.roomedia.com (where the video is currently parked)
• WINDOWS 300K | WINDOWS 56K | REAL 300K | REAL 56K (file formats, all clickable links; you just have to figure out which file format you'd like to go with)
• 02:00 (time of video)

My experience after waiting in vain for a few different videos-do NOT click on the title link (in my case that was the "Maria Callas Movie Opens Across US and UK - video" link). Click directly on the media player or file format that you'd like to view your audio or video file in and you will get much better results.

Why Should I Use SingingFish?

SingingFish is really, really easy to use. Searching for audio and video files in a general search engine is somewhat daunting, and you end up spending a lot of time sorting through "noise" and extraneous results that have nothing to do with what you're searching for. SingingFish is a dedicated multimedia search engine that delivers efficient, relevant results for pretty much any audio or video file that you want to search for.