Searching Videos
Index MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, M4V, WebM and TS files by sampling one frame per second (adjustable from 0.1 to 30 seconds), read matches as merged time ranges, and jump the preview to the sampled second where the person was found.
SnapByFace treats video as a sequence of still frames. It samples frames, runs the same detection and 512-D embedding used for photos, and reports the timestamps where a person was found.
Supported formats
MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, M4V, WebM, TS. Video folders are scanned recursively, exactly like photo folders.
Frame sampling
SnapByFace extracts one frame every 1 second by default. The interval is configurable from 0.1 to 30 seconds.
| Interval | Frames per hour of video | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5 s | ~7,200 | short clips, fast cuts, people on screen briefly |
| 1 s (default) | ~3,600 | general use |
| 5 s | ~720 | long recordings, slow scenes, first pass over a big archive |
| 30 s | ~120 | quick triage of very long footage |
:::caution The sampling interval is decided when the video is analyzed. Changing it requires re-analyzing the affected videos. Changing the match threshold does not re-analyze video — it only re-matches embeddings that already exist. :::
How video results are shown
Individual frame hits are merged into time ranges, so you see “this person is on screen from 00:12 to 00:48” instead of dozens of separate entries.
- Each range shows its start and end time.
- Double-click a range to open the preview positioned at that moment, then scrub around it to confirm the hit.
- One video can appear several times under the same person, once per separate range.
:::note A range is built from sampled frames, so its boundaries are approximate — accurate to roughly one sampling interval. :::
Tips for better video results
- Use a 0.5–1 s interval when people appear only briefly.
- Long static recordings (lectures, meetings, fixed-camera footage) are fine at 2–5 s.
- Very dark footage, heavy motion blur, and faces smaller than about 60 px will not produce reliable embeddings.
- Video analysis is CPU-bound; expect roughly real-time to several times slower than real-time depending on resolution and interval.
Working with long footage
- Do a first pass at 5 s over the whole archive to find which files are worth attention.
- Add only those files to a second, tighter run at 0.5–1 s.
- Use pause/continue and let the run finish in the background — see Large Libraries.
Export
When you export matched media, a video hit copies the full original video file. The time range for each hit stays visible in the results view, where you can preview the exact second.
Trial limits
Unlicensed, results are capped at 5 matches per person and 20 per search, and you can start up to 100 analyses in total. Activating unlocks the matches already found. See Activation.