Seekframe

How to search video footage by what's in the shot

To search footage by what is in the shot, add your media folders or drives to Seekframe and type the shot you need: “drone over a coastline”, “close-up of hands typing”. Seekframe indexes every clip on your Mac and shows each matching moment with its time in the clip. Drag a result into Final Cut Pro or, with Seekframe Pro, export the top matches as markers on a timeline.

Updated

Why names and keywords don't find b-roll

Cameras give files names like C0042.MP4. Keywording every clip can take longer than the shoot, so it rarely gets done, and a search for “crowd” finds nothing unless someone typed that word. Seekframe doesn't need names or keywords; it looks at the picture itself.

Find a shot in your footage

  1. Add the folders or drives with your footage to Seekframe. External drives and network storage are part of Seekframe Pro.
  2. Seekframe works through every clip on the Neural Engine. On an M1 Pro an hour of footage takes about 26 seconds; you can search while it works.
  3. Type the shot: aerial view of a canyon, someone pouring coffee, city street at night in the rain. Each result shows the time of the moment in its clip.
  4. Select a result and press Space to play it from that second, drag it into Final Cut Pro or Finder, or press ⌘R to show the file in Finder.

Formats: MP4, MOV and M4V, including HEVC and ProRes. MKV, WebM and AVI files are counted in the sidebar but not searched, because QuickTime Player can't open them.

The matches as markers on a timeline

With Seekframe Pro, run a search and choose Result › Export Markers… (⌘E). You get a timeline with the top 100 moments, each as a short clip with a marker on the matching frame, labelled with your search. The clips point to your original files, and nothing is copied.

Pro also makes the jump frame-accurate: Seekframe checks the frames around each match and lands on the best one.

Footage stays on your drives

Client footage and unreleased material shouldn't go to anyone's server to be searched. Seekframe runs its model on your Mac, has no account and no analytics, and the Mac App Store edition has no permission to use the network at all.

Download for Mac — free

Questions

Does it search what people say in the footage?

No. Seekframe finds what is seen in the shot, not speech.

How many moments go into an export?

The timeline holds the top 100 video moments of your search, each as a short clip with its marker. The .csv lists every video result.

Can I search footage on a NAS?

Yes, with Seekframe Pro. Results from a share or drive that isn't connected still show, with their thumbnails, so you know what to connect.

What does Seekframe Pro cost?

$19.99, once. No subscription. The free version searches one folder on your Mac with up to 10 hours of video.

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