SnapStream’s ‘TV Searcher’ Blog

A few weeks ago we started offering webinars for SnapStream Enterprise, our television search appliance.

If you aren’t familiar with it, SnapStream Enterprise like a DVR on steroids crossed with a search engine — it lets you record a bunch of television shows and then search inside those recordings for every mention of:

• your presidential candidate
• your city’s mayor
• a celebrity (in case you’re their publicist)
• swear words (in case you’re monitoring foul language on television at the FCC)
• …or pretty much any other topic that might have been covered on television.

And anyone in your organization (city government, production studio, PR agency, corporate communications department, etc) can do these searches from their desktop PC.

Anyways, register for one of our webinars to see the product first-hand and to learn more about the most recent release of SnapStream Enterprise (version 4.8).  To sign-up, see the calendar of upcoming webinars and choose a date and time that works for you.

Long hours and hard work have paid off. We’ve polished off old features and added new features in the latest 4.8 version of the SnapStream Enterprise TV Server.

Some of the shiny new features include:

SnapStream TV Alerts (via email): Create a saved television search that runs automatically on every new recording. Whenever matches occur, the Enterprise Server will dispatch an e-mail with clips of the new results. SnapStream Alerts can be setup to run as-it-happens, daily or weekly.

Access Control: The SnapStream Enterprise TV Server now supports the creation of user accounts with restricted privileges. Activities like watching recordings, watching live TV, scheduling recordings and changing settings can now be access-controlled on a user-by-user basis. Access control supports integration with Active Directory, so your users don’t have to learn a new set of credentials.

Automatic Sync to iPod/iPhone: Automatically sync recordings and clips to iPods or iPhones by subscribing to an SnapStream Enterprise RSS feed in iTunes.

Frame-by-Frame Playback: Paused videos can be advanced by single frames with the arrow keys for more accurate clipping.

Administrator Email Alerts: The Enterprise Server can be configured to notify an administrator by e-mail whenever an error occurs.

Google OneBox Integration: Integrate television search results with Google’s enterprise search products, including the Google Mini or Google Search Appliance (GSA), with our Google Onebox support.

Some improvements to our existing features include:

• Real-Time Closed Caption Indexing – The Enterprise Server now begins indexing new recordings immediately. Search results are available 15 minutes after the start of recording.

• Improved Search Results – Search Results are now shown in absolute time, instead of relative position within a video. (i.e.: Monday 4:44 pm instead of Monday 0:14). Duplicate search results have been eliminated, and results within the same show are now easier to recognize in the search results.

• Search by Channel - searches by channel using the specific number (“channel:12”), network (“network:ABC”), or call sign (“callsign:KHOU”).

• Clipping-In Progress – Clips can now be taken from a show while recording is still in progress.

• H.264 – SnapStream’s ShowSqueeze feature now includes support for the H.264 format, whch delivers high video quality in a compact file size. All Enterprise features are supported for H.264, including search and clipping.

• Time-based Expiration – Recordings can now be deleted automatically after a time period of your choice.

• Recording Stats – Better manage your storage capacity with at-a-glance recording stats, including average hours per day of recordings, based on your recording schedule.

• Library advanced display options – New display and sorting options are available for the library.

• Faster Library and Scheduler – New optimizations in the library and scheduler make them faster for large recording schedules and large recording lists.

We’ve tweaked and added to the Enterprise TV Server, making version 4.8 faster and more reliable when recording and monitoring television. Click here to view the full release notes.