Use case
News and archive: find the file footage.
Breaking story, archive drives on a shelf. Find the footage by describing it.
In short: News and archive editors can index drives once, then search them by description or by words said, including drives that are no longer connected. Indexing and search run on the editor’s computer.
No editor needed. Sift works on its own as a desktop app on Mac and Windows: search, preview, build Selects and share footage by link without opening an editor. The editor panels are optional.
The problem.
Archives are only as useful as they are searchable. Tape-era notes, folder names and memory are what most archives run on.
When you don’t need it.
A newsroom with a managed system and shared storage already has its answer. Sift is for editors and small teams searching footage on drives.
A workflow that fits.
- Index the archive drives
Plug each in once, add its folder.
- Search by description or words
Visual for the picture, Spoken for the sound bite.
- Identify the drive
Offline results are marked so you know which drive to reconnect.
- Share a look
Share a link for a quick approval.
What helps most.
Shelved drives stay in the index.
Searched on your computer; online only if you share it.
Find a named person across years.
MXF, MTS, MOV and many more; RAW needs proxies.
Questions
Is it a MAM for a newsroom?
No. It has no ingest workflow, metadata schema or multi-user access.
How accurate is the visual search?
It matches descriptions to frames and can miss. Verify before broadcast.
What does it cost?
$99 a year per computer. Free for 3 days or 25 searches. No card.
Updated 2026-10-22
Keep reading.
Try it on your own footage.
Free for 3 days or 25 searches. No card. Then $99 a year for one computer, Mac or Windows. Everything in Sift, including the optional editor panels and one free link to share footage.