Creating Feeds for TubeMogul OneLoad with the Media API

This topic describes how you can create automatic feeds for the TubeMogul OneLoad distribution service, using the the read methods in the Video Cloud Media API.

TubeMogul OneLoad is a service you can use to distribute videos from your Video Cloud Media Library to dozens of different video and social networking sites, including YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! Video, and Viddler. Using the Video Cloud Media API, you can create feeds of videos from your Media Library that automate wide distribution of your videos through TubeMogul. Read more about TubeMogul OneLoad.

Requirements

In order to set up feeds from your Video Cloud account to TubeMogul, you need the following:

• You need to set up an account with TubeMogul. Sign up at TubeMogul. Sending content to TubeMogul using MRSS is a Premium TubeMogul feature that normally comes at additional cost. Video Cloud publishers, however, have free access. After signing up for a TubeMogul account, simply send an e-mail to support@tubemogul.com with your Video Cloud publisher ID and the e-mail address you used to set up your TubeMogul account. TubeMogul offers several tiers of service for additional video distribution services. Learn more about Tube Mogul features.
• In your TubeMogul account, use the Upload Profiles page to set up profiles with access to your video and social networking site accounts.
• You need to be able to set up custom metadata fields in your Video Cloud account. This feature is available only to Video Cloud Pro and Enterprise publishers.
• To be included in a TubeMogul feed, videos must have an accessible video asset URL. This means that your account must either be a progressive download account or a streaming account with universal delivery service enabled. Read more about Content Delivery Options and universal delivery service.
• To retrieve video asset URLs, you need a Media API read token with URL access. Read more about getting a Media API token.

Main Steps

The main steps in setting up a feed from your Video Cloud Media Library to TubeMogul are:

1. Create a custom metadata field in your account named tm_category.
2. Set values for the custom tm_category field for each of your videos to one of TubeMogul's categories.
3. Set values for the tags field for each of your videos.
4. Create a Video Cloud Media API read method command for the feed, using the argument output=tm.
5. Submit the feed to TubeMogul.

Set up the tm_category custom field

You need to set up a custom metadata field in your account named tm_category. Since the TubeMogul category needs to be set to one (and only one) of a specific list of category names, use the List type for this custom metadata field. For the list values, use the valid categories for TubeMogul, which are: Arts, Comedy, Entertainment, Music, News, Science, Sports, Travel, Video, Games, Animals, Pets, Autos, People, How To, Instructional, Commercials, Promotional, Family, and Kids. If the tm_category field is set to an invalid value (but not null), the video will be treated as if the category were Entertainment.

The internal name of the custom field must be tm_category. The display name can be anything; in this example, we have named it TubeMogul category.

For information about using custom metadata fields, read Setting Up Custom Metadata. For specific information about setting up custom metadata fields, read Creating Custom Metadata Fields.

Set the tm_category value for your videos

Since sites like YouTube require a category for every upload, you will need to set up a custom metadata field that stores each video's category. Only videos that have a value in the custom tm_category field can be returned in a TubeMogul OneLoad feed. You need to edit all the videos that you want to include in feeds to include a valid value in this field. You can edit the custom tm_category field using your choice of several techniques:

• Select multiple videos that belong in the same category in the Media module and edit them. Depending on the metadata that already exists for your videos, you may be able to sort videos by tags, by name, or by playlist to identify videos that belong to the same category.
• Use FTP batch provisioning to set the custom tm_category field. Use the overlay_update attribute to avoid overwriting the existing metadata of your videos.
• Use the Media API Write method update_video.

Set values for the tags field in each of your videos

Since many video distribution destination sites require videos to include tags, each of your videos must have some value set in the tags field in order to be included in a TubeMogul feed. Tags help your viewers find your videos, and can also determine which videos are considered "related." What you choose for the tags value can depend on the content and purpose of your videos. You might want to include brand-related tags as well as tags that indicate the action and contents of the video, including the names of performers, works (song, movie, show), or products.

Create feeds with Media API methods

Your feeds are based on one or more Media API read method calls. You can create multiple feeds, customized by playlist, tags, or other variables. You might want to create separate feeds for separate brands or shows, for example. 

The Media API call has 4 required arguments: command, token, media_delivery, and output.

The command argument specifies which Media API method to use. Which API method you use depends on what videos you want included in the feed. If you want to include all your videos, you would use the find_all_videos method, with a command like this:

http://api.brightcove.com/services/library?command=find_all_videos&token=01234.&media_delivery=http&output=tm

In the token argument, use the Media API read token with URL access for your Video Cloud account. Read more about getting a Media API token.

The media_delivery argument should be set to http, since TubeMogul feeds require progressive download, rather than Flash streaming delivery.

The output argument specifies the format of the output from the Media API method. When you set the value of the output argument to tm, the Media API read methods return a form of MRSS that is customized to work with TubeMogul OneLoad, following these rules:

• Only return active videos.
• Only return videos that have a value in a custom field called tm_category. The feed displays the value of this field in the media:category MRSS element.
• Only return videos that have tags defined. The feed displays the value of a video's tags in the media:keywords MRSS element.
• Orders the feed by the video's creationDate. The feed displays the video's creationDate in the pubDate MRSS element, in ISO 8601 format.

Submit the feed to TubeMogul

Pass the feed URL to TubeMogul. This takes the form of the complete Media API method call. In the TubeMogul OneLoad user interface, navigate to the MRSS Feeds page and enter the Media API method call into the Feed URL field.

TubeMogul uses the pubDate field to exclude older videos you may already have included in feeds.