While automatic techniques are being developed, it maybe useful to develop manual tagging techniques for ‘random access’ to video. Most sites assign tags to complete videos — that is not much useful because for videos it will be useful to get to specific time intervals where interesting things happen. This could be accomplished by segmenting videos and assigning tags to each segments. Video researchers are doing this using automatic techniques and are making progress. But these techniques are not yet ready. So in the mean time if one could develop manual, or better still semi-automatic, techniques to assign such time-tags to videos, then searching videos will become more effective. There is a great business opportunity in this area.
Fraser Dinnis brought to my attention a company that has taken first step in this direction. See
This is a step in right direction. There is a lot of scope in this area.