A system and method for processing digital multimedia files to provide searchable results includes the steps of converting a digital multimedia file to a plain text data format, annotating each word in the file with an indicator such as a time stamp to indicate where the word appears in the file, converting each indicator to an encoded indicator using characters that are not indexed by search software, indexing the converted, annotated file, storing the converted, annotated file and a file location of the converted, annotated file, receiving a query from a user's computer, and returning search results to the user's computer that include search snippets comprising unindexed portions of one or more files considered responsive to the query and the file location of those files.