How to find text and licence plates in a video in Pimloc Redact
If Pimloc Redact has found text or licence plates in a video, you can search for them by what they say. This page explains how to search on-screen text, narrow down the results, and redact what you find.
Before you start
On-screen text search works on videos with text or licence plate detections. Select Text or Licence plates under Auto detect for redaction when you upload. See How to upload a file. You can also add them after upload. See Add detections after upload.
Each piece of text Pimloc Redact finds, such as a sign, a screen or a number plate, gets its own row on the video timeline. On-screen text search finds those rows by the text that was read from them.
Search for text
Open the video and click Search in the tools on the left.
Click On screen text at the top of the panel.
With nothing in the search box, the panel lists all the text in the video, in the order it appears. Each tile shows where the text is, with the text that was read from it underneath.
Type in the search box. For example, a licence plate number, a name on a sign or a word on a screen. The results update as you type.
Text read from a video isn't always perfect, especially when it's small, blurred or at an angle. So the search also finds near matches. For example, a search for "concourse" also finds "Consoursosto" and "CONVERSIO". This helps you find a licence plate even if one character was misread.
You can also click a text box on the video while on-screen text search is open. Its text goes into the search box, so you can find everywhere else it appears.
To clear the search, click the × in the search box.
Match whole words only
To see only exact matches, click Match whole word, the first button at the end of the search box. Every word you type must appear in full.
Search with a pattern
Click Use regular expression, the button at the far end of the search box, to search with a regular expression. This is useful for text that follows a pattern, such as licence plates or phone numbers. For example, ^[A-Z]{2}\d{2} finds text that starts with two letters and two numbers, like a UK number plate. Capital letters don't matter.
You can use Match whole word or Use regular expression, but not both at once.
Filter by type
If the video has more than one kind of text, such as scene text and licence plates, a Types menu appears next to the search box. Untick a type to hide it from the results. All types are shown to start with.
Filter by personal information
If Pimloc Redact has found personal information in the text, such as names, places or dates, a Filter button appears under the search box.
Click Filter.
Open Categories under Detected PII.
Tick the text you want to see. Use Select all under a heading to tick every item of that kind, such as every name under Person.
The Filter button shows how many items you've ticked. Untick them all to see every result again.
Use the results
Jump to the text
Click a result to jump to it in the video. Its row is selected on the timeline.
To select more than one result, hold Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) and click each one. Hold Shift and click to select every result in between. You can also drag across the tiles.
Redact or unredact results
Click the eye in the top-right corner of a result to redact or unredact it in every frame. If you've selected several results, the eye changes all of them.
To change every result on the page at once, click Redact all or Unredact all. Results on other pages don't change.
When Match whole word or Use regular expression is on, the buttons change to Redact all matches and Unredact all matches. These change every match, on every page.
Merge results that are the same text
A sign or a number plate can be split across several rows, for example when a car drives out of shot and back in. Hover over a result and click Merge to put those rows together. See How to merge tracks of the same person or object.
A stacked icon in the bottom-left corner of a tile means the row has more than one track. Hover over it to see a thumbnail of each one. See See every track in a suggestion.
Check the result with Preview before you export. See Check the redaction with Preview.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Cmd + click (Ctrl + click) = Add or remove a result from the selection
Shift + click = Select every result in between
R = Redact or unredact the selection
B = Preview on or off
Space or K = Play or pause
Shortcuts don't work while you're typing in the search box. For the rest of the editor's shortcuts, see Keyboard shortcuts.