Find What Was Said with Qumu

Personally, when I have to write about something, particularly when looking for a line, I prefer a written source to a video one. Is it not so much easier to navigate?

Well, Qumu might change my mind, with the new capability for its Video Control Center product that lets users search for spoken words in videos on any computer or mobile device.

With the Qumu Video Platform, enterprises can manage and distribute video to desktop and mobile viewers, whether it’s live or on-demand. The speech search indexes the audio in all the videos, allowing people to search for any word or phrase, searching single videos or several at once.

It can also be set to search for certain words automatically, and search both text and speech concurrently.

As with all voice-to-text conversions, there are some concerns. One might wonder, what about people with thick accents, or stutters, or use words it doesn’t recognize? What about languages?

While those concerns have not been addressed by the announcement, it’s safe to say the Qumu will make sure all those potential issues are handled, so users can search through speech without fear.

"The new Speech Search capability enhances our customers’ ability to find and share knowledge across their enterprise,” said Vern Hanzlik, Executive VP and General Manager of Qumu. "With every spoken word from videos being indexed automatically to a federated knowledgebase, employees get access to more information assets, increasing their productivity.  Knowledge management is an important part of every enterprise, and adding the full value of video to their repositories is critical.”

This is a great capability, and one that is sure to prove convenient. If you need an exact quote, it’s easy to go back through the video and search for it. Even minor disagreements over who said what to whom in a video can be solved with the Speech Search, providing new levels of convenience in search processes.