SnapStream’s ‘TV Searcher’ Blog

One field where SnapStream’s TV search technology is having an impact is broadcast television research in the field of journalism.  Rather than manually transcribing TV broadcasts for the purposes of content analysis, researchers are using SnapStream to automatically retrieve full transcripts for TV shows.

We recently heard from one such customer, Dr. Nancy Jennings from the University of Cincinatti.  Broadly, Dr. Jennings’ research has focused on children and the media (this article talks more about Dr. Jennings’ research background).  Dr. Jennings’ current research, for which she is using SnapStream, seeks to inform the development of television and online media that increases in literacy young children:

“I’m very pleased with the SnapStream server.  I have used it thus far to record Saturday and Sunday morning children’s shows for the entire month of October on 8 different channels simultaneously.  I’m just beginning to get through that data, so I don’t have any findings yet.  But it was such a pleasure using the server compared to how I was doing it before…literally having 8 different VCRs taping different shows on different machines, then having to digitize them after that.  I also recorded 2 of 3 presidential debates and the vice-presidential debate on the SnapStream on several different stations at once.  I’m curious to look at the commentary of the debates by the different stations, and now I can code it by time stamp as well.    It has also helped me with some experimental studies of educational television that I’m doing.  Through use of the SnapStream server, I was able to record programming on HBOFamily called Happily Ever After which has inspired a new line of research with a PBS Ready-To-Learn program called Super Why.  Also, the transcription function is phenomenal!  I’m sure that would come in handy with content analysis of language use.  I’m hoping I may use that with another study on another PBS Ready-To-Learn program called MarthaSpeaks.”

The SnapStream’s TV Alerts feature allows you to save keywords and have your SnapStream Server (or SnapStream Mini) automatically search all of your TV recordings for them; you’ll get an email with results on a real-time, daily or weekly basis – you choose the frequency.  If you’ve ever used Google Alerts, think of this like Google Alerts but for traditional television.

So let’s say you want to track all mentions of your organization.  Simply type in the keyword, and anytime your organization is mentioned on your recorded channels, an email will be sent to you showing you the transcript of the video along with a link to the particular part of the video where it was mentioned.  It’s as easy as that!

For example, let’s say you’re in charge of press for the City of Houston and you want to track all mentions of The City of Houston or Bill White (our mayor) on the local news, you could set up an automatic search for the keywords:

• “city of houston”
• “mayor white”
• “bill white”

and have the results emailed to you:

Read more about how the City of Houston is using SnapStream to monitor television.

With the “real-time” frequency option, you can get an email the moment a mention occurs so there’s no time lost in responding to an important media mention.  You can even track “breaking news.”  For example, recently, The San Jose Police Department was able to react immediately to an incident involving a cow and a train (?) thanks to SnapStream’s as-it-happens email alerts!

Once you’ve found stuff you’re interested in, you can click the link to watch the video and then create clips and burn those clips to DVD, email clips to other people within your organization, or even synchronize those clips to your iPhone or iPod so you can watch them while you’re traveling.  And unlike clipping services and media monitoring services, you can create an unlimited number of high-quality TV clips and DVDs without any incremental cost.

To learn more, see this in-depth YouTube video on SnapStream’s TV alerts function:

It’s been a little over a year since we released the SnapStream Server, our turn-key TV search appliance that allows organizations to record lots of TV and then search inside those recordings, and we’ve accomplished a lot in that year! Some of the highlights:

• Over 3 major software updates, we’ve expanded the SnapStream Server’s capabilities, including:
  • Real-time TV search and clipping
  • Filter searches by show genre and channel
  • Simple clip creation
  • DVD burning from any client PC
  • 24×7 recordings with program guide data
  • E-mail a clip
  • Google OneBox integration
  • Frame-by-frame playback and clipping
  • and more…
• From a year ago, when we only had a handful of customers, we now have a broad customer base including:
  • Government organizations at the city, county, state and federals levels
  • Universities
  • K-12 schools
  • TV and radio entertainment properties
  • TV stations
  • Political campaigns and organizations
• Internally, we’ve grown our team in almost every area

And we’ll soon release the 4.9 version of SnapStream Enterprise that will, among other things, coincide with our offering a SnapStream Server TV search appliance that can record and search clear QAM and ATSC broadcasts.

So it’s been a great year, we have even more people using SnapStream to find whatever it is they are looking for on traditional television, and the product is only going to keep getting better!