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Custom metadata can be used to add additional metadata fields to your videos. Custom fields are added as part of your account settings. After the custom fields have been added, the fields can be assigned values using the Media module.

Creating custom fields

To create custom fields, follow these steps.

  1. Login to {{ site.product }}.
  2. Open the Admin module and then Video Fields. Note that you must be an account administrator to access to the Admin menu.
  3. The Video Fields page will display your custom fields and all the standard video metadata fields. Review the standard fields before creating any new custom fields. This will help you avoid creating custom fields when a standard field that can do the job already exists.
    Video Fields page
  4. Click Add Custom Field.
    Adding a field
  5. Enter a Display Name. This will appear as the label for the field in the Upload and Media modules. An Internal Name will automatically be created for the field based on the display name. The internal name is used when programmatically accessing the field using any of the Brightcove APIs. The internal name can be changed but the internal name cannot include whitespace, double-byte characters or punctuation.

    Note that internal names never have spaces and are all lower-case. They are generally formed by making the display name lower case and replacing spaces with underscore characters.

    For example, if you enter My Field as the display name, the internal name will be my_field.

  6. Select a Type for the field.
    • Text - The user can type anything into the field up to 1024 single-byte characters (or 512 double-byte characters).
    • List - The user will select from a list of values. Lists can have no more than 150 possible values, and each value in the list can be 100 characters long.
    • Date/Time - The user can store and manage both date and time values with a single field, allowing precise video timestamping.
    • Number fields with char validations - The user can capture numerical data with custom character validations, ensuring correct input formats like phone numbers or zip codes.
    • Boolean fields - The user can enable simple true/false options for custom metadata to represent binary choices like 'active' or 'inactive' within video metadata.
  7. Enter a Description. The description field will appear as a hint in the Studio interface.
  8. If the custom field will be required, check Make this Field Required.
  9. If your field type is List, enter a comma-separated list of values and then click Add to List.
    Adding a field
  10. Click Save Field to save the changes. Click Save and add another to save the field and begin creating another field.

Custom fields you create are available immediately and will be visible in the Media module.

Up to 10 custom fields can be created. If you need more than 10 fields, click the Need more fields? link in the Video Fields page to contact Brightcove Customer Support with a request for more. Publishers are limited to 50 custom fields.

Editing list values

You can add additional values to a List type custom field. Click the custom field name link, add the values and then click Add to List. When done, click Save Field.

Deleting list values

You can add/remove existing values from a List type custom field. Click the custom field name link, click the delete icon () associated with the value and then click Save Field.

When a list value is removed, any videos that were previously assigned that value will keep the value. However, if a video with the deleted value is edited, the value will be cleared and a new value will have to be selected.

Removing custom fields from an account

To remove a custom field from an account, click the delete icon () associated with the custom field name.

Reserved names

There are some reserved words that must not be used as custom field internal names (the display name does not matter). One common name is category. If you use a reserved name as the internal name for a custom field, searches on that field will return no results. If you already have a custom field named that uses a reserved name, you should remove it and replace it with a different name or contact Brightcove Support for guidance.

The following should not be used as internal custom field names.

category complete created_at
creationdate custom_fields dataimport
discriminator displayname displayname_analyzed
displayname_tokenized enddate itemstate
lastmodifieddate mediaid name
playable_now playstotal playstrailingweek
published_at publisheddate publisherid
referenceid referenceid_analyzed scheduled
referenceid_analyzed schedule.ends_at schedule.starts_at
scheduled searchtext searchtext_analyzed
startdate tag tags
text state video_type

Programmatically accessing custom fields

Custom fields can be accessed programmatically using one of the Brightcove APIs. The following developer documents provide more information.