Searching for Unavailable Videos with the Media API

This topic describes how to use the Media API to find videos that are inactive, in process, or out of schedule.

By default, all Media API methods return only videos in your Video Cloud account that are available to be played. This means that methods such as find_all_videos or find_videos_by_tags will not return a video:

• if it is marked inactive
• if it has been uploaded but is still processing
• if it cannot be played because it is outside of the scheduled start or end date for the video

If, however, you want to retrieve videos even if they are not available to be played, you can use one of these four methods in the Media Read API:

• find_video_by_reference_id_unfiltered
  
• find_videos_by_reference_ids_unfiltered
  
• find_video_by_id_unfiltered
  
• find_videos_by_ids_unfiltered

These unfiltered Read API methods return videos even if they are inactive, in process, or out of schedule. Each of these methods has the same signature as the corresponding filtered read method, aside from the method name. For reference information about these methods, see the Media API Reference. For general information about the Media API, see Getting Started with the Media API.

Using the unfiltered Read API methods

You should generally avoid using the unfiltered Read API methods on a public-facing page, since they return unplayable videos along with playable ones. These methods are intended for your internal administrative use. For example, if you have integrated your Video Cloud Media Library with a content management system, you might use unfiltered Read API methods to retrieve metadata for videos that you have just uploaded, but which is still in process. You might also use these methods to determine when a video becomes available for viewing (when its state becomes active, or it has entered the scheduling window).

Note that the unfiltered Read API methods access data that is cached by Video Cloud. As a result, changes you have made to existing videos may not appear in your Read API method results for as long as 20 minutes.

API tokens for the unfiltered Read API methods

Your existing API tokens will not work for the unfiltered Read API methods. If you want to use the unfiltered Read API methods, contact Brightcove Customer Support to have your tokens authorized to use these methods.