X-Ray

X-Ray reads every image and video in your Library, whether you uploaded it or made it on Shotz. It writes what’s in it, finds the people in it and marks the moments that matter, and lets you search your footage by what it looks and sounds like, so you can find the shot you mean instead of scrolling for it.

X-Ray comes with every paid plan: Starter, Pro and Team.

What it finds

Open a file in Library and choose its X-Ray tab to see what X-Ray found.

• Description: a sentence or two on what the file shows, first in the Details tab, with Written by your team under it once someone has rewritten it.
• People: the faces in it. The same person is recognised across your workspace’s files. Choose a face to name them, and search finds every file they’re in by that name. On a photo, X-Ray also boxes each face over the picture while the X-Ray tab is open, with the name under a box once someone has named that person. Point at a person in the tab to find their box; the others fade.
• Tags: the subjects, actions, setting and mood. They’re in the Details tab, and the ones X-Ray suggested have a sparkle. Owners and editors can remove a tag with its ×, or add one with Tag, which turns into a field right there: type a tag and press Enter, separate several with commas, and press Esc when you’re done. A tag can be up to 32 characters; X-Ray leaves out any suggestion longer than that. Your own tags stay when X-Ray reads the file again.
• Moments (videos): each distinct shot or moment, with the time it happens. On a desktop, choose one and the video plays from there.
• What’s said: the transcript of any video or audio with speech. Transcripts come with every plan, Free included, since captions and transcript editing use them.

X-Ray starts once a file has processed and usually takes a minute or two. Long videos take longer.

Search by meaning

Type what you’re after in the Library’s search box the way you’d describe it, such as “someone laughing on a rooftop at night” or “a car door slamming”. X-Ray finds the moments in your videos that look or sound like it, even when nobody wrote those words down, and shows each with the time it happens. Moments that don’t match closely enough are left out, so a search for something your footage doesn’t show can find no moments at all. Searches also match file names, descriptions, tags, transcripts and people’s names. See Find files in your Library.

A video is searchable this way a few minutes after X-Ray has read it. Videos under 4 seconds are found by their description and tags instead.

People

In Library, the People tab shows everyone X-Ray has found, the people you’ve named first. Choose someone to see every file they’re in, and choose them again to go back to everyone. The person goes in the page’s address, so reloading or sharing the link keeps them open. From there:

• Name or Rename gives them a name that search finds.
• Same person as puts two people together when X-Ray has split one person in two, for example across very different lighting.
• Forget takes them out of People and deletes their faces. The files stay. If they’re in a file added later, X-Ray finds them again.

Write your own description

Choose Edit description at the foot of the Details tab (or Write a description, if there isn’t one) to write your own, then Save. This works on every plan. Yours stays: X-Ray won’t write over it. To go back to X-Ray’s, choose Edit description, then Use X-Ray’s. Search looks at whichever description the file has.

To rename a file, click its name at the top of the panel, type, and press Enter or click away. Esc puts the old name back. ⋯ → Rename works too.

Owners and editors can write descriptions, rename files and name people. People who can only comment see what X-Ray found.

On Free

Files you add on Free still get their transcripts, but X-Ray waits, and a file shows a description only if someone wrote it. No faces are boxed over a photo. Owners and editors can write one on any plan. Tags work on every plan, so you can add and remove your own; the ones X-Ray suggested stay hidden. Anything X-Ray read before a plan ended stays hidden until you have a plan again. Owners see Upgrade in the X-Ray tab on each file, and in the Library’s People tab; everyone else sees that it comes with paid plans. When the workspace moves to a paid plan, X-Ray reads every file that waited over the next few minutes; a big Library takes longer.

Faces and privacy

Faces are matched only within your workspace, never across workspaces. Shotz keeps a template of each face to recognise the person again, not a copy of the picture. Deleting a file deletes its faces, and deleting a workspace deletes them all.

An owner can turn face recognition off in Settings → General → Recognise faces. Turning it off deletes every face X-Ray found in the workspace, and the names you gave them, straight away. X-Ray still describes, tags and indexes your files. Turn it back on and X-Ray looks for faces again. Read more in our privacy policy.