Problem[01]
“The one where she sings”
Everyone at the table remembers grandma singing at a birthday. Nobody remembers which year it was, which phone filmed it, or which of the folders called Videos it ended up in.
For Family video archives
Find the family video everyone remembers
Clips from a dozen phones, camcorder tapes a service digitized, twenty years of holidays on one drive. Prewatch sorts them into days and scenes on your Mac and transcribes every word. Ask for grandpa's story about the farm and get the clip and the minute.
14 days free, then $59 a year or $7.99 a month. Works with your Claude or ChatGPT plan; timelines need DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1+. Clip descriptions are optional and use your own API key, billed by Anthropic or OpenAI.
Works withA Mac with Apple silicon · macOS 26+
ClaudeClaude Desktop and Claude Code
ChatGPTThe ChatGPT Mac app and Codex
DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1Timelines through its own MCP server
Any drive or NASThe Prewatch folder travels with the media
Problems
What slows Family video archives down
Problem[02]
IMG_4417, MVI_0032, Tape 07
Twenty years of clips from phones, cameras and a transfer service, named by whatever made them. Every attempt to sort them into albums by hand stalls somewhere around 2009.
Problem[03]
Two hours of tape, ten minutes to keep
A digitized VHS tape is blank stretches, a lens cap and a long recital, with the first steps somewhere in the middle. Watching every tape through never fits into an evening.
What Prewatch gives you
Your footage, already watched
Prewatch indexes every clip on your Mac, so Claude or ChatGPT knows what is in your footage and can build the cut with you in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
| What you get | Where it runs | What it does for you |
|---|---|---|
| Days and occasions | On your Mac | Clips grouped into days by each file's date and split into scenes at long pauses, so a birthday party reads as one event and the drive home as another. |
| What was said, searchable | On your Mac | Speech transcribed on your Mac in the language spoken, with a rough English translation alongside, so a toast or a grandparent's story at dinner can be found by its words. |
| What's in the picture | On your Mac | Apple's on-device Vision labels each clip's keyframes, so the dog, the beach or the first snow can be found without any API key. |
| Blank tape and dark clips flagged | On your Mac | Black stretches at the start and end of a tape, frozen frames and footage too dark or blurry to watch marked with their times, so you skip to the picture. |
| Stays on your Mac | On your Mac | No account and no upload: video and audio never leave the Mac. Locations stay as coordinates with no network lookup, and recording them can be switched off. |
| Summaries and best moments | Claude or OpenAI | Optional: a written summary of each clip and its best moments with in and out points, using your own Claude or OpenAI API key. Off unless you turn it on. |
Prewatch · ClipsMac app
The screenshot arrives with the app
Ask it
One question instead of a day of scrubbing
You ask in Claude or ChatGPT. Prewatch answers with the clips, the seconds and the timecode, and your assistant builds the timeline in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
01
Find grandpa telling the story about the farm.
The clips where he tells it, with his words transcribed and the minute it starts, whichever year it was filmed.
Your AI app02
Show me every clip at the beach from summer 2014.
The days that summer with beach clips, found by their image tags, with a keyframe from each so you can pick.
Your AI app03
Make a five-minute film of the kids growing up.
A timeline in DaVinci Resolve Studio with a moment from each year, in order, ready for you to trim.
Your AI appWill my digitized tapes and old camcorder files work?
Prewatch reads MOV and MP4 files that macOS can decode, so tapes a service transferred to MP4 work; AVCHD, AVI or MPG files need converting first. A digitized tape usually carries the date it was transferred, not the date it was filmed, so its clips land on that day. Clips with no date, or one before 1990, go into one undated group.
Do I need DaVinci Resolve?
Not to organize and search. Indexing and searching happen in Prewatch, and asking in plain words works through Claude Desktop or the ChatGPT Mac app. Only having the assistant build a film needs DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1 or later.
Can it find every video of my daughter?
No. Prewatch has no face recognition and never names anyone. Image tags describe things like a dog or a beach, not who is in the frame, so search by occasion, place or what was said instead.
How does the free trial work?
Prewatch is an App Store subscription with a 14-day free trial: $59 a year or $7.99 a month after it. You manage or cancel it in your Apple Account's subscription settings; cancel before the trial ends and you are not charged.
Try it on your own footage
Point Prewatch at a folder you have already shot, then ask about it in Claude or ChatGPT.
14 days free, then $59 a year or $7.99 a month. Works with your Claude or ChatGPT plan; timelines need DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1+. Clip descriptions are optional and use your own API key, billed by Anthropic or OpenAI.