Video Search Basics

Where is the Search section?

You’ll find it in the left navigation bar – just click the magnifying glass icon.

What types of search can I perform?

You can search using three main criteria:

1. Visual Search – e.g., “someone hugging”, “drinking wine”, “running”
2. Speech Search – find clips where a specific word or topic is mentioned
3. Sound Search – e.g., “laughter”, “crying”, “explosion”, “dog barking”

How does search work under the hood?

Imaginario uses a dual-engine solution:

• A contextual engine that doesn’t rely on metadata or tags at all — best for very niche, contextually heavy scene descriptions.
• A second engine that uses shot-level multimodal descriptions with a semantic layer on top — closer to (but not the same as) traditional label-based search, and better for finding specific objects or phrases and semantically similar wording.

For speech search, the system first looks for an exact match of your phrase; the next-best results are usually semantically close alternatives rather than exact matches.

Every search result includes a confidence traffic light and a description of what’s happening in the scene — covering the visuals, what’s being said, and the sounds.

The hamburger icon

1. Find the hamburger menu next to the search bar. It is extremely important, as it helps you define your search parameters.
2. Before entering your query, first select the type of search you need (visual, speech, sound), along with the clip length and the number of recommended clips you want.
3. If you haven’t initially processed the file(s) for visual, speech, or sound indexing, those files will not appear under the hamburger icon > “Select Content”. For example, if you uploaded a podcast interview but forgot to process it for “Speech” during the upload, the file will not appear as an option when you select “Speech” as a search type in the hamburger menu.

How do I choose which content or folder to search inside?

1. Click on the hamburger menu in the top right corner, next to the search bar.
2. Select “Choose Content” or “Select Folder” (depending on the platform label).
3. A list of available folders or files will appear. Choose the one(s) you want to include in your search.
4. Make sure the selected content has been processed for the search type you need (e.g., visual, speech, sound). Unprocessed content won’t show up as searchable.
5. You can select one or multiple folders and then click Save.

How do I adjust search results in the hamburger menu?

You can fine-tune your search using the following options:

• Number of Recommendations: select how many clips you want to return (1–30).
• Video Length: for visual or sound searches, 20–30 seconds works best; for speech (especially comedy), 45–60 seconds is ideal.

What are filters and how do they work?

All information on visual filters can be found in the Visual Search Filters Introduction. The more you select, the longer the indexing takes. Example: for interviews, you may only need speech.

Filters are optional but powerful:

1. Faces — filter to find any face. Upload a face and crop it to turn it into a visual filter. Faces are automatically processed with any video element to give you StoryLab™ Single Clips — see Visual Search Filters Introduction.
2. Facial expressions – search based on basic human emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, anger). Included only on demand (Enterprise plans).
3. Celebrities – filter clips by known personalities. Included only on demand (Enterprise plans). Works especially well for comedy content; for unscripted shows, most (but not all) celebrities are recognized.

Can you show a few examples when searching?

Sure! For visual search: type “women hugging” with content set to unscripted shows — you’ll get a variety of matching clips showing that visual action.

Or for sound search: switch to “Sounds” and type “women fighting” — results will focus on audio moments matching that description.

Tips for best results

• Choose the correct search type (visual, speech, or sound) before typing your query.
• Organize content into folders beforehand for more relevant filtering.
• Use filters (emotions, celebrities, faces) to narrow down results when needed.

Need help refining a search or finding a specific kind of moment? Just let us know — we’re happy to assist.