Keywords — Controlled vocabulary

Overview

Keywords are the central tool for making media findable in footage.one. Unlike simple text terms, keywords come from a controlled taxonomy — a structured vocabulary with translations, synonyms and relationships between concepts.

Keywords and Labels complement each other: keywords provide precise, normalised descriptions; labels are flexible tags like hashtags.

What makes keywords special

Multilingual

Every keyword is stored in multiple languages. If you assign a keyword in German, it is automatically displayed in the correct translation for English-speaking users — and vice versa.

Synonyms and spelling variants

The taxonomy knows alternative names:

• "Muhammad Ali" can also be found via "Cassius Clay"
• "Gorbachev" and "Gorbatschow" lead to the same keyword
• "Auto", "PKW" and "Personenkraftwagen" all point to the same concept

Relationships

Keywords are related to one another. The taxonomy recognises, among others:

• Part of / Has parts — e.g. "Engine" is part of "Car"
• Instance of — e.g. "Eiffel Tower" is an instance of "Tower"
• Subclass of — e.g. "Sports car" is a subclass of "Car"
• Geography — e.g. "Paris" belongs to "France"
• Related — general thematic proximity

These relationships automatically broaden search results: searching for "France" can also find assets tagged with "Paris".

Assigning keywords

Manually

1. Open an asset and switch to the tagging area
2. Start typing in the search field — suggestions appear after the third character
3. Select the appropriate keyword from the list
4. The keyword is assigned immediately

Suggestions show not only the keyword name but also a description and alternative labels, so you can select the right term.

Search modes

Several modes are available when searching for keywords:

• Exact — finds only exact matches
• Starts with — finds keywords beginning with the search term
• Contains — finds keywords containing the search term
• Deep search — also searches descriptions and synonyms

AI-assisted

footage.one offers automatic tagging powered by AI:

• Object recognition — detects objects, people, scenes and locations in images
• Visual similarity — adopts keywords from visually similar media
• Colour recognition — detects dominant colours
• Location keywords — derives keywords from geo-metadata
• Description analysis — extracts keywords from description texts

You can review the AI suggestions and accept or reject them with a single click.

Note: AI auto-tagging is a subscription feature and is not available in all plans.

Keywords at different levels

Keywords can be assigned at different levels:

Level	Description
Asset	Keywords apply to exactly this media item
Episode	Keywords apply to all assets in the episode — ideal for shared descriptions
Album	Keywords for a thematic collection
Time range	For videos, keywords can be applied to specific time ranges

Assets inherit keywords from their episode and albums. This means: a keyword assigned at episode level makes all assets in that episode findable via that keyword — without having to assign it individually.

Excluding keywords

If a suggested keyword does not fit, you can exclude it:

1. Click the exclusion icon next to the keyword
2. Choose the type of exclusion:
   • Single keyword — only this keyword is excluded
   • Entire class — all keywords of this category are excluded (e.g. all instances of "Tower")

Excluded keywords no longer appear in suggestions.

Free-text keywords (Freewords)

If you enter a term that does not exist in the taxonomy, it is saved as a Freeword. Freewords work like regular keywords but are not normalised — they have no translations or relationships.

Administrators can subsequently map Freewords to a taxonomy keyword using the Mapping Tool. This ensures consistent tagging throughout the entire archive.

Tips

• Start at episode level — assign common keywords at episode level first, then refine individual assets
• Think associatively — not just describe what is visible, but also what might be associated
• Use AI as a starting point — let AI make suggestions and add manually
• Use mappings — regularly map Freewords to taxonomy keywords