Generate Named Entities

Named entity recognition, or NER, is a natural language processing (NLP) technique that identifies specific entities in text, such as names of people, places, organizations, dates, etc. By tagging these entities, NER turns unstructured text into structured data, making it easier to analyze and use in various applications.

The Named Entities feature extracts and ranks key named entities from video transcripts, optimizing them for better Natural Language Processing (NLP) search and content analysis. This feature enhances the accuracy of NLP-based search and enables more effective content indexing, making it easier to retrieve relevant information. It's ideal for content analysts, search engine developers, media platforms, marketers, and researchers who are looking for improved content search and analysis through NER.

Example of named entity recognition

This feature identifies names and gives them meaning in a given context. For example, in the sentence “Apple announced its latest product in California,” NER identifies Apple as a company, not the fruit, and California as a location.

What categories NER can identify?

NER typically focuses on recognizing common categories such as:

People (for example, “John Smith”)
Organizations (for example, “UNICEF”)
Locations (for example, “Mount Everest”)
Dates and times (for example, “July 4, 1776”)
Miscellaneous entities like product names (for example, “iPhone 14”) or monetary values (for example, “$1,000”)

Getting started

To begin using the Named Entities feature, you can use FastPix’s create media from URL or upload media from device API endpoints. These endpoints analyze video or audio files and generate named entities automatically when uploading new media.

If you want to enable named entity generation in your existing content that was previously uploaded, use the generate named entities API endpoint. See how.

Generate named entities for new media

Step 1: Collect the URLs of the media files to upload to FastPix (using pull through URL method) for which you want to generate named entities.

Step 2: Create a JSON request and send a POST request to the on-demand endpoint.

In the JSON configuration for the FastPix API request, the following parameters are required:

type: Specify whether the media is a video or audio file.
url: Provide the HTTPS URL of the file for named entity generation.
namedEntities: Set this to true to enable named entity extraction.
accessPolicy: (Optional) Set to public or private based on your needs.
maxResolution: (Optional) Specify a resolution limit, for example, 1080p.

Request body (Creating new media from URL)

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "video",
      "url": "https://static.fastpix.io/fp-sample-video.mp4"
    }
  ],
  "namedEntities": true,
  "accessPolicy": "public"
}

Request body (Creating new media by direct upload)

If you are uploading media directly, the inputs section contains the relevant upload details, and the structure looks like this:

{
  "corsOrigin": "*",
  "pushMediaSettings": 
  {
    "namedEntities": true,
    "accessPolicy": "public"
  }
}

Generate named entities for existing media

If you wish to generate named entities for media that has already been uploaded, use the generate named entity endpoint and follow these steps:

Step 1: Collect the mediaId for the media you want to generate named entities for.

Step 2: Create a JSON request and send a PATCH request to the /on-demand/<mediaId>/named-entities endpoint. Replace <mediaId> with the actual mediaId of the already existing media.

Example request body

{    
  "namedEntities": true    
}

How to Generate Named Entities from the Dashboard

Open the FastPix Dashboard > Products > Media > Add new media.
Choose Pull Video (URL) or Push Video (direct upload).
For new uploads:
- For Pull Video, use the example in Request body creating new media from URL.
- For Push Video, use the example in Request body creating new media by direct upload.
- In your request body, include "namedEntities": true to let FastPix automatically detect names, places, and other key terms while processing your video.
For the existing media, select the video you want to process from Media list.
On the Media details page, open the InVideo AI tab.
Click Enable Named Entity Recognition, then confirm to start the analysis.
FastPix analyzes the transcript and extracts named entities such as people, organizations, locations, dates, and other key terms.

Accessing named entity results

To retrieve the generated named entity of your media (video/audio), use the Get Media by ID endpoint.

Alternatively, you can access video.mediaAI.namedEntities.ready event, which triggers when the named entities data is generated.

Example of the event data:

{
  "type": "video.mediaAI.named-entities.ready",
  "object": {
    "type": "media",
    "id": "f8579bd1-e6ac-4d34-b00c-17b453788e73"
  },
  "id": "8ee27849-0b1b-4664-9e26-4abd5cc91d4f",
  "workspace": {
    "name": "BrightCovePlayer-iOS",
    "id": "f7a13f50-7f5c-48f4-b7b2-c901dcff61c6"
  },
  "status": "ready",
  "data": {
    "isNamedEntitiesGenerated": true,
    "namedEntities": {
      "entityCount": 4,
      "namedEntities": [
        {
          "entity": "FastPix",
          "category": "Organization"
        },
        {
          "entity": "content",
          "category": "Concept"
        },
        {
          "entity": "library",
          "category": "Concept"
        },
        {
          "entity": "stream",
          "category": "Action"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "createdAt": "2025-11-05T08:51:15.113942549Z",
  "attempts": []
}

In this event, the namedEntities field contains a list of the extracted named entities, along with their types (for example, Technology, Organization, Person, etc.). You can access this data after the named entity extraction process is completed.

General considerations

Ensure that the mediaId is correctly obtained for existing media when using the /on-demand/<mediaId>/named-entities endpoint.
The accessPolicy and maxResolution parameters are optional but help manage access and media quality, depending on your needs