Create a VOD object

Before you upload your new video, please review the file naming conventions in the Video Specs & File Naming Best Practices article. 

Upload video to Tools

Upload via drag-and-drop or browse

Either drag and drop the files into the upload area or click to browse your files. If DRM is enabled for you in Tools, it will show a DRM-enabled checkbox in the Add Video modal. If you want to enable DRM for the asset, make sure to enable this DRM checkbox before ingesting content; select Axinom, as the DRM service.  

Using S3 URL

For videos exceeding 15GB, we recommend using S3 for upload. Tools like Cloudberry Explorer, Filezilla, and Cyberduck support batch uploads, making the process faster. Just remember: wait for the upload to complete before adding the S3 URL in Tools. Learn more here: Using S3 URL.

Once the video is fully uploaded, the file is encoded into different renditions and bitrates as per your ABR transcode template.

MRSS upload

You can ingest videos, series, and episodic content via an MRSS feed. Learn more: MRSS Content Ingest Feed Set-Up.

VIDEO sub-tab menu

The VIDEO tab has a sub-tab menu. The menu is categorized by upload, encoding, error, in-review, scheduled, and publishing statuses. 

Video Tab Sub-Menu: Status-Based Views

Add video metadata

Once the video has finished encoding, access the object to add video metadata. Edits remain in draft mode until you publish the page. 

Each field with a red asterisk (*) denotes a required field. These are the minimum requirements of completion before you can publish your video. They include title, permalink, author, description, and images.

Title

The TITLE field should be editorialized using upper and lower-case style rules. Best practices suggest that you remove the numeric identifier auto-generated by the processing of the video from this field. 

Permalink

A slug (permalink) is automatically generated for every page created, which you can rename. Permalinks must follow certain guidelines to prevent a 404 page error:

• there should be no white spaces or special characters in between or at the end of the permalink. We suggest dashes as a best practice but underscore can be used too.
• all alpha characters should be in lower-case
• Best practices suggest that you remove the numeric identifier auto-generated by the processing of the video from this field.
• No white spaces should exist before or after the permalink
• a slash character (/) must always be the first character in a permalink
• Feel free to use SEO keywords in your permalink as you see fit.

The AUTHOR field is internal only. You can enter anything in this field, but it cannot be blank.

Add Video thumbnails 

Once the video is transcoded, you can start adding video thumbnails that you want to add to the video asset. See this article to learn more about adding video thumbnails.

Categories

You can choose from existing, or add new categories to a video. There is no limit to how many categories you add. However, as a good practice limit your video to not more than two categories for a focused search result in the site or app. For more information, reference the Category Template Page article.

Tags

Use tags to add more detail and description to your content. In your web and app interfaces, users can filter and browse by using tags, and in the Tools CMS, you can them to search assets.  For more information, see the Tag Template Page article.

Rating

If it applies to your content type, add a maturity rating for the video. The choices include MPAA, TV web, and mobile app rating options. If you enable PARENTAL CONTROLS on the platform, these ratings will correspond to those appropriate age gates. If your content is unrated, you can leave this field blank/null, otherwise define the parental rating of the video. In the front end, the rating is displayed on the video detail page and in the player.

Person

Unless you are on the FITNESS template, disregard this custom field.

Published Date

Can be displayed if you set this on a platform level to show the date a video was published on the video detail page.

Updated Date

Can be displayed if you set this on a platform level to show the date a video was updated on the video detail page.

Restriction Type

For within the U.S. only you can either allow or restrict a video within a geographical range by zip code. For multiple zipcodes, they should be comma-separated.

Select Template 

The default template page is automatically applied on a VOD page. No need to worry about templates unless you've created custom versions of the same template type, like if there are 2 or more versions of a Video Template Page.

Monetization Model

Under AppCMS > Service tab, you can view the default nature of your service: 

Associate a monetization model to the video object. Unassigned assets default to your default service, SVOD in this example. Specifically important for PPV assets, ensure to attach the TVOD model at episodic and series level, leaving it blank can grant SVOD users access to your PPV content. If you need any assistance with verifying your metadata configuration, we're here for you 24/7. Contact us for support.

Monetization Plan

Associate a monetization plan to the video object.

Live Stream toggle

LIVE STREAM toggle: Not applicable for VOD clients that do not do live streaming events. This toggle makes it possible to change the nature of your video object so that it can host a live video feed.

Content Availability Dates

Show a countdown clock overlay on a future VOD/live event object. 

Select the correct time zone where the event is taking place and set the actual date and time of the event in the Start Date date picker field. The clock will let you know exactly the time remaining until the event begins. The default message overlay will read: "Content will be available in DD:HH:MM:SS". You can change this text from APPCMS > Template Builder > Pages > Template Pages > Video Page > Video Detail (Entertainment) Module or Video Detail (v2) Settings > Localization > Labels > Content will be available in:

In the End Date date picker field, set a future date to expire the content. You can also leave it blank but it cannot be a past date. For expired content, the video detail page will display "Currently content is not available". To remove the video showing up in search or programmatic trays, you will need to unpublish the video. So remember to manually unpublish it once the content expires.

Tick the Show In Advance and Is Visible checkboxes to display the timer on the page.

Note

• The Content Availability Dates module does not control content windowing. That should be handled with either 1) a time delay video license or 2) unpublishing content to manually override when a window needs to be sunset.

Countdown vs. Scheduled Publishing

The Content Availability module only displays a countdown timer. The Schedule Publish option on the Publish/Update button lets you schedule your content beforehand to go live automatically at the date and time that you'll set here.

Closed Captioning

For Web and TV apps, upload subtitles in the .vtt format. For Android and iOS players, upload subtitles in the .srt format.

SRT and VTT may have distinct timestamp structures. So we'd recommend verifying the timestamps by comparing the VTT and SRT files and fixing any sync errors. There is no automated way for us to test or validate the closed caption files.  This needs to be part of your QC process as you are adding new content.
If you're able to download the CC files, it indicates that it's valid. To change the default CC UX text, see Font Sizes, SRT Closed Caption Files.

File Details

In the File Details section, update the runtime minutes, year, file size, and other data points. This is crucial for releasing any new content and affects your analytics data.

When you are creating Live Video objects, always remember to edit the Running Time duration. This field is initially set to 0 minutes, but you should update it with the anticipated length of the live event. 

Video License Windowing 

Video licenses are created based on either the Air Date (for individual videos) or the Season Air Date for Episodic content. To leverage a license against a video page, use the AIR DATE, to apply license for an Episodic object, use the SEASON AIR DATE calendar. 

Additional Metadata 

Use the Additional Metadata box to add IMDB ID and Content Descriptors on the video player as an overlay and the video detail page. App stores like Amazon index this info into the metadata feed for IMDB.

Renditions and MEZZ

Re-Encode Rendition

After the video processing is complete you can examine/review the individual renditions within this module. You can QC any/all of the individual video renditions and relaunch to replace a single rendition if needed. To do this, click on the gear icon for that single rendition, and then left-click Re-Encode Rendition. 

Edit Rendition

Click Edit Rendition if you want to replace the Rendition Url while retaining the current ID and object. Just remember to match the corresponding MP4 qualities and HLS.

Re-encode All

If you wish to re-encode all renditions at once (using the same source file that you uploaded) click the RE-ENCODE ALL key at the top of the module.

Embed 

The EMBED module allows you to copy and paste to capture an iframe of the video you wish to share outside the ViewLift platform. Keep in mind that for this to function properly that video needs to be published LIVE. Learn more: Embed Player Syndication Engine.

SEO

Use the SEO module to optimize the video detail page for free, organic traffic. Set the meta descriptions, keywords, and title. Please follow best practices here: ViewLift SEO Best Practices

Social Publish

On a one-time and per-video basis, you can cross-publish your videos to one or multiple YouTube or Facebook accounts. The prerequisite to cross-publishing is to have your YouTube and/or Facebook accounts linked first. Please take note that only Facebook entity accounts are viable for this feature, not personal Facebook accounts.

You must have admin access in TOOLS to add these account connections. In TOOLS, click on the down arrow next to your logo in the upper-right and then choose admin:

On the left rail menu once you are in admin, left-click on MULTI-PUBLISHING MANAGEMENT.

Now that you're inside this social account linking section, you can add the appropriate accounts and set your preferences:

When you are finished making your changes here, click SAVE.

Version History

Displays the version history of the asset. This includes who made the changes, when it happened, and the status of each activity.  To restore to a desired version, click on the gear icon, and click the Revert button on top.
A use case could be that a video in a curated tray displays a 404 error, depending on the case, you can check the version history of the asset to verify if it was unpublished at any point. If yes, you can restore the asset or remove the video from the tray curation.

Cast and Crew

If your service uses the Entertainment Template, use this module to enter the CAST AND CREW information for the video. 

Trailers

Search and associate a VOD asset as a trailer for this video object. The trailer object should be free content. Note that if a video object is set to EPISODIC (by being associated with a Series page), you cannot link that video as a trailer.

Related Videos

The Autoplay toggle in the AppCMS Settings page controls the automatic playing of videos on being directed from the Home page or Series pages as well as the automatic playing of the next/ related videos. Link the Related Videos and the CMS will create an array list and queue up them to play automatically.

Custom field

This field is optional, but feel free to use it for a longer description or extra tags.

Advanced Options

Skip Recap - Specify when the Skip Recap button should appear: set its start and end times within the video.

Skip Intro - Specify when the Skip Intro button should appear: set its start and end times within the video. 

Play Next - If Autoplay is enabled for your platform, define when to show the Play Next button here. Tools queue up the next video from the array list and send it to play video.

Clevertap Popup - Specify when to show the Clevertap web Popup.

When you're happy, click Publish to publish the asset.

Next step

Once the video is published, you can curate it on trays on the Homepage (or any other page). 

Appending the permalink to your domain name will give you the direct URL of this video on Web. E.g., "https://www.example.com/this-video-permalink".