How to find a video clip by describing it

Somewhere in last spring’s interview footage, a customer said the onboarding “felt like assembling furniture without the instructions”. It would be the perfect line for the new case study video. There are 60 clips from that shoot, all named things like C0032.MP4, spread across two drives and a shared folder, and you’d rather not watch three hours of footage to find twelve seconds.

This page covers how people usually find a specific clip in their own video files, and how to do it in Fabric by describing what was said, with results that open at the moment it was said. It’s aimed at your own footage: interviews, screen recordings, talks, product demos and phone videos.

How people usually find a clip in their own footage

Most video files arrive with names the camera or phone chose: IMG_4417.MOV, C0032.MP4, or a recording date. The common fix is folders named by shoot or date, plus a renaming pass if there’s time. That works for knowing which day something was filmed. It says nothing about what was said in clip 32.

Editors often log footage in a spreadsheet or add markers and notes in their editing software as they review. A good log makes later searching fast, and it takes a long time to write. On busy projects the log tends to stop halfway, and footage from earlier projects usually never got one.

Screen recordings and recorded demos are shared as links or saved to a downloads folder, where the only searchable thing is the title. Finding the part of a recorded walkthrough where someone explained the billing settings usually means opening each likely recording and dragging the playhead back and forth until you hear it.

Step 1: Put your footage where it can be searched

Install the Fabric desktop app and move footage into the Fabric drive the way you would into any folder. The drive mounts on Mac, Windows and Linux, and files there take no space on your computer, streaming when you open them. That matters with video, where a single shoot can fill a laptop. How to access cloud files without using disk space covers the setup.

You can also drag clips into the web app or click Upload a file, which handles large batches. A team can work from a shared Fabric drive, so the interview footage lives in one place for the whole team. For clips shot on a phone, open the video, tap Share and choose Fabric to send it from iOS or Android.

Step 2: Transcribe the clips

Fabric transcribes uploaded video in MP4, MOV and WebM, and audio in MP3, WAV and M4A. Each transcript is attached to its clip, searchable and editable, so you can correct a misheard product name or a speaker’s surname. Transcription needs a paid plan.

Fabric also processes each clip as it arrives: it creates embeddings for meaning-based search, writes a summary and extracts topics, and suggests tags through smart organization. A smart collection for customer interviews, for instance, can gather matching clips as new footage comes in.

Step 3: Search for what was said

Click Search or press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) and describe the line or the moment. Fabric search matches by meaning and keyword across transcripts, so “customer comparing onboarding to flat-pack furniture” can find the clip where they said “assembling furniture without the instructions”.

Open the result and the clip starts at the matching timestamp. For an editor, that’s the in-point, ready to check and pull into the edit. If the first hit isn’t quite right, the next few results may be other takes or other interviewees making a similar point, which is handy when you want options.

To narrow things down, filter by location to search only one shoot’s folder, by kind of item to limit results to video, or by tag. Put a person’s name, a product name or an exact phrase in quotes for strict matching. Combining a description with a filter (“pricing complaint” inside the March interviews folder) usually gets you to the right clip quickly.

Step 4: Mark the moments you’ll want again

Once you’ve found a good clip, leave a timestamped comment on the moment. On video, a comment can include a drawing on the frame, which is useful for pointing at a logo, a product on screen, or a framing problem. Comments can be marked completed, so a list of selects can double as a checklist.

For a client or collaborator who needs to review, share the folder with commenter permission. They can leave their own timestamped notes, and you can work through them in one place.

Step 5: Ask the AI assistant across a whole shoot

Open the shoot’s folder and open the AI assistant. It limits itself to that folder and can answer questions like “Which interviewees mentioned switching from a competitor?” with clickable references and timestamps for each clip. You can ask follow-ups and save the answer as a note, which works as a quick selects list for the edit.

When one clip is close to what you need, select it and run similarity search to find others like it in the library.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find a specific moment in hours of video?

Transcribe the footage in Fabric, then search for what was said. Results open at the matching timestamp, so you don’t need to scrub through each file.

Which video formats can Fabric transcribe?

MP4, MOV and WebM for video, and MP3, WAV and M4A for audio. Transcription needs a paid plan.

Can I search my clips without renaming them?

Yes. Search reads the transcript, so a clip named C0032.MP4 is findable by what was said in it.

Will storing footage in Fabric fill up my laptop?

No. Files on the Fabric desktop drive take no space on your computer and stream when you open them.

Can I search only one project’s footage?

Yes. Filter by location in your file system, or open that project’s folder and ask the AI assistant, which limits itself to the folder.

Can I leave notes at a specific point in a video?

Yes. Timestamped comments mark a moment, and a comment on video can include a drawing on the frame.

Can a client find and comment on clips too?

Share the folder with them as a commenter. They can leave timestamped comments, and each comment can be marked completed once it’s handled.

What if the transcript gets a name wrong?

Edit the transcript. Corrected names and product terms then match when you search for them in quotes.

How should I organize video projects for later?

A light structure by project or shoot works well alongside search. How to manage video project files goes into folder setups in more detail.