Assets

Overview

An asset is a video file that can be contained within a Franchise, Show, Season, Special, and Episode. Assets can be full length episodes, clips, or previews. Because video clips and previews (not full length episodes) can be considered "Extras" in their own section on PBS.org, Media Manager provides the ability to create Assets and Extras in two separate places in the console.

Episodes and Specials can contain only one full length episode but unlimited clips and previews. Once you have added a full length episode, you cannot add another to the same object. Franchises 

Media Manager optimizes the raw video file that you add to your asset and automatically generates several formats to adapt to a user's internet speed. So if a user with a slow internet connection clicks on your video, they will automatically be served the file size that accommodates their internet connection speed.  

The following table illustrates the relationship between objects and asset types. It shows which objects accept specific asset types.

Video specifications

How to create a video asset

Learn how to access Extras

• From an Episode or Special, click the Assets tab (Figure 1.1).
• Click Create Asset located on the right side of the screen (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1

• Click the Object type dropdown menu and select Full Episode, Preview, or Clip (Figure 2). 

Figure 2

• The selected object type displays (Figure 3.1).
• In the Title textbox, type the title of your video asset containing no more than 60 characters, including spaces (Figure 3.2).
• The slug is automatically created for you based on the title (Figure 3.3). 
• Click Save (Figure 3.4).

Figure 3

• A message confirming that your asset has saved appears in a green bar at the top of the page (Figure 4.1).
• A persistent status bar appears at the top of the page and provides a quick view of the asset's status, including its published status, availability, and completion of required fields (Figure 4.2).  Now you can begin filling out the rest of the metadata and add your video and caption files.

Figure 4

Core Data

• If the asset contains a full length episode, the Title, Object type, Short and Long Descriptions are all carried over from the previous screen (Figure 1.1). Previews and Clips do not inherit the descriptions of the episode and must be added at the asset level.
  • The Object type can be modified at the asset level, however, the Short and Long Descriptions are pulled from the Episode page and must be modified at the episode level (Figure 1.2). Short Description has a limit of 90 characters, including spaces. Long Description has a limit of 400 characters, including spaces. You cannot change the short and long descriptions of a full episode, only clips and previews. You must go back to the episode page and change the descriptions there.
• Click the Premiere and Encore Date textboxes to modify the dates (Figure 1.3). The Premiere is the original online or on-air date of the video, Encore is the date the video is rebroadcast on-air. 
• In the Tags textbox, type keywords that will help viewers find your asset (Figure 1.4). Tap the Enter key on your keyboard to enter each word or phrase. Click the x in the upper right side of each tag to remove a tag.
• Click the Content rating dropdown menu and select a rating for this asset (Figure 1.5). View ratings *NR = No rating
• Click the Content rating descriptor dropdown menu and click the descriptor that is appropriate for your asset (Figure 1.6). Each chosen descriptor appears in the textbox and can be removed by clicking the x on the left side of each entry. This field only displays after you have selected a Content rating.
• The date, time, and author of the asset creation and last update displays (Figure 1.7). 
• When finished, click Save (Figure 1.8).

Figure 1

Additional Data

• Click the Additional Data tab (Figure 1).

Figure 1

• Click the Exclude from DFP toggle to allow or prevent DFP pre- and mid-roll from displaying on your video asset (Figure 2.1). When the toggle displays ON, content is excluded. When the toggle displays OFF, DFP content will be shown during your video. 
• In the Funder Message textbox, type any acknowledgments associated with your show (Figure 2.2). Maximum length: 500 characters, including spaces. 

• Click the Allow Viral Player Embed toggle so that it displays ON if you want third party websites to be able to embed this asset on their website (Figure 2.1). Learn more about the Viral Player
• Click the Language dropdown menu and click the primary language in which your video is presented (Figure 2.4).
• The ability to add topics is assigned in the Additional Data tab of the show to which the asset belongs. Please file a support ticket to enable, disable, and assign Topics at the show level. If Topics are enabled, click the Topics dropdown menu and select a topic from the list provided (Figure 2.5). 
• The Legacy TP Media ID is a legacy feature that is auto-populated and can be ignored (Figure 2.6).
• Click Save (Figure 2.7).

Figure 2

Related Content

Use the related content section to add up to eight (8) remote assets to your video page. Remote assets, also known as Related Content, are plain links and rich promos that include titles, images, and descriptions and are related to the main content of your video. You can add up to four (4) Episode Links and four (4) Learn More Promos. Related Content is optional. Learn how to create a Remote Asset

• Learn More Promos contain a title, URL, description, and image
• Episode Links contain only a title and URL

• Click the Related Content tab (Figure 1.1).
• To add an Episode Link that already exists in Media Manager, click the green Add Existing button in the Episode Links section or click Create New to create an entirely new remote asset (Figure 1.2). 
• To add a Learn More Promo that already exists in Media Manager, click the green Add Existing button in the Learn More Promos section or Create New to create an entirely new remote asset (Figure 1.3). 

Figure 1

Add Episode Links

Learn how to create a Remote Asset

• To search for a remote asset by keyword, type search criteria in the search textbox on the right side of the page and tap Enter on your keyboard or click the magnifying glass icon (Figure 1.1).
• To browse remote assets, use the filters along the top of the page (Figure 1.2): 
  • Click the All Franchises dropdown menu to browse within a particular franchise
  • Click the All Shows dropdown menu and click the show you want to browse
  • Click the Asset type dropdown menu and click the type of asset you want to add
• If enough assets are returned in the results, pagination will appear in the bottom right side of the page (Figure 1.3). 
• In the Select column on the far left side of the page, next to the episode link you want to add, click Add (Figure 1.4).

Figure 1

• After you've added up to four (4) episode links, they appear in a list at the bottom of the page (Figure 2.1).
• Click Save to add them to your video asset (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2

• Once you have added a total of four episode links to your assets, the green Add Existing and Create New buttons no longer appear. The only way to modify your list is to delete one of your current selections. When you do that, the buttons display and you can select a new episode link. To delete a link, click the trashcan icon on the right side of the link you wish to delete (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Add Learn More Promos

The steps for adding Learn More Promos are the same as adding Episode Links so please follow the steps listed above.

Availability

Availability determines the access viewers will have to your video by checking a user's Passport status (learn more about Passport - this link takes you to the MVault documentation).

User types and permissions are defined as follows:

How to assign availability

• Click the Availability tab (Figure 1).

• Availability settings for Public users are listed first. Click the calendar icon on the right side to set the availability status or assign a custom time frame (Figure 1.1). 

   Click here to learn more about the calendar

  • On the right side of the calendar, click one of the following options (1): 
    • Not Available - never allow this type of user to see the video, 
    • Always Available - allow the user to always view the video 
    • Custom Time Frame - assign customized dates and times.  The example below illustrates applying Custom Time Frames.
  • When the two calendars appear, click the day you want the video to become available on the calendar on the left (2) and on the calendar on the right, the day you want the video to become unavailable (3). 
  • The corresponding time, in hours and minutes, is beneath each calendar (4). Click each dropdown menu to assign a beginning time and ending time. All times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).
  • When finished, your assignments appear in the FROM and TO textboxes (5).
  • When finished, click Apply (6).

  

• Click the Geo Availability dropdown menu to select the countries in which the asset should be viewable (Figure 1.2).
• If you wish to customize the countries, click the checkbox next to Edit selected countries (Figure 1.3). This brings up a country selector that allows you to select individual countries.
  • The selectbox on the left contains all available countries (see each country's corresponding code). To search for a specific country, type the country code in the textbox provided (Figure 1.4) or click each individual country that should have viewing permissions (Figure 1.5). Each time you click a country code, the country automatically moves to the selectbox on the right, indicating it has been selected. 
  • Select all countries by clicking Add All (Figure 1.6). 
• Selected countries display in the selectbox on the right (Figure 1.7). Click each country code to remove it from the selected list.
  • To remove all countries, click Remove All (Figure 1.8).

Figure 1

• To assign Passport users the same viewing permissions as Public users, click the checkbox next to Apply "Public Users" availability setting for Passport Members (Figure 2). When this is checked, Passport member options are grayed out and Passport members have the same availability permissions as the public. 

Figure 2

• The new parameters are recorded and display in the dropdown menu. At any time you can return the asset to its original settings by clicking the Set to the Show's default setting: (Always Available) link located beneath each dropdown menu (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Platform Management

The Platform Management section allows you to choose the platforms on which you want your asset to be available. If no platforms are selected, your asset will not appear anywhere and can only be accessed by the direct URL to the object.

• To search for a specific platform, type the platform name in the textbox provided (Figure 1.1) or click each individual platform (Figure 1.2).
• Click Add All to select all platforms (Figure 1.3).
• Each time you click a platform, it automatically moves to the selectbox on the right, indicating it has been selected (Figure 1.4). 
• To remove all platforms, click Remove All (Figure 1.5). 
• When finished, click Save (Figure 1.6).

Figure 1

Video and caption files

The video section is where you can add your video and closed captioning files. Add only one video file and one caption file per asset. The video and closed captioning files can be replaced at any time without disrupting the viewer experience. Learn more about replacing files

View closed captioning specifications

How to add your video and closed captioning files

• Click the Video tab (Figure 1).

Figure 1

• Add your video and caption files in one of the following ways (add only one video file and one caption file per asset):
  1. Type the full URL of the corresponding video or caption file in the first textbox of both the Video and Caption section (Figure 2.1). If choosing this option, the file must be hosted on a server and the full URL of the video file must be provided (example URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/media/help/my-video-file.mp4). 
  2. Click Choose to the right of the second textbox in each section to select a video or caption file from your computer (Figure 2.2). 
• If you are not required to include a closed caption file, click the checkbox next to Or, provide valid caption justification and select a reason from the options provided why you do not need to ingest a caption file (Figure 2.3). If none of the listed options fits your needs, click Other and in the textbox provided, manually type the reason for not ingesting a caption file.

• To auto-publish your video file, click the Auto publish checkbox to the left of the Save button (Figure 2.4). When toggle is set to ON, your asset will publish automatically when all files have successfully ingested. See below to learn more about the auto-publish feature.

• Click Save (Figure 2.5). 

   Learn more about auto-publish

  What is auto-publish?

  The auto-publish feature ensures that once all necessary files have been successfully ingested, your asset will automatically publish. This means that you can upload your video file (and caption file if applicable) and walk away during the ingestion process to do other things. You must check back in on the process in case any errors occur during ingestion. If errors occur, the process will stop and your asset will not publish until the errors are corrected.

  What if I leave and my asset encounters an error?

  It's very important to remember that when you are using the auto-publish feature, you must be diligent about checking the ingestion status.  If ingestion fails, an error message appears in the console and your asset does not publish. You need to manually fix the errors and republish the asset by clicking the Publish button.  Refer to the publish status to see if everything successfully ingested and published. 

Figure 2

• The Status column updates with a percentage of completion as the file ingests (Figure 4.1).
  • To cancel ingestion, click the icon to the right of the information icon under the Actions column (Figure 4.2). This feature is available for videos only since the ingestion process for caption files is typically very quick.
• When the files have fully ingested, the Status column displays Ingestion Complete (Figure 4.3). 

Figure 4

• When the Status column displays Ingestion Complete for both your video and caption files (Figure 5.1), you can view the transcoded files. 
• Click the information () icon in both sections (Figure 5.2) to view all associated transcoded files. 

Figure 5

• In the Output Files section, click the user type associated with the transcoded files you want to view to expand the list (Figure 6).
  • Public - files that display as videos available to everyone for an allotted period of time.
  • All Passport Members - files that display as videos available for a specific window of time and available only to PBS Passport members.
  • Your Station's Passport Members - files that display as videos available for a specific window of time and available only to the station(s) Passport members.
  • Trick Play - files generated to surface preview thumbnail images when users scrub forward/backward within a video. For now, the files generated are supported by Roku only. Learn more
    • Notes about Trick Play files: Only assets that have been created (or have had their video files re-ingested) since February 13, 2020 will have trick play files generated. Trick play output files are generated and displayed in the console after video ingestion has fully completed. Older videos will display a "No output files yet!" message in the Trick Play section of the output files. PBS is working to generate trick play files for older content. Furthermore, the trick play feature is not yet enabled on Roku devices, but should be shortly. No action is required by you. 

Figure 6

• All transcoded files for the selected user type display (Figure 7.1). Click the profile type again to contract the results.
• Click the X in the upper right side of the page to close the menu (Figure 7.2).

Figure 7

How to replace video and closed captioning files

Live replace is a feature that enables you to replace a video and/or caption file without disrupting the viewing experience. While the file replace is in progress, viewers continue to access the video and captions that are currently live and can do so until the their cache has cleared or they begin a new session. For users who keep the original video screen open, or have paused playback for a period of time, the original file remains available for up to a day after the replacement is complete. 

• To begin replacing your files, click the pencil icon to surface the fields where you can add a new file (Figure 1). 

Figure 1

• Add the file URL in the textbox or click Choose to select a file from your computer (Figure 2.1).
• Click Save (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2

• While the file replace is in progress, information for both the original and new files displays. When the new file has fully ingested, a message indicating so displays at the top of the page (Figure 3.1) and Ingestion Complete displays to the right of the new file name (Figure 3.2).
• Refresh the page to remove the old file from view so that only details for the new file display (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3

Support for Audio Description and Secondary Languages

Media Manager supports video source files which include one or more audio tracks. (See Full Specs.)

For example, the video source file may have English as the primary audio track, and there could be additional tracks included for English Audio Description (AD), and other languages such as Spanish, French, etc.

What is Audio Description (AD): Additional audio content, inserted as a narrative between the dialogue and other program sounds, which describes visual aspects of the video that may not be accessible to some visually-impaired users. Audio Description is provided as a separate track, and users can choose to turn it on in addition to the primary audio track.

At this time, not all PBS platform players can support audio track selection, but this will be improved over time. See Full Specs to get more information about player support.)

Detected audio details are displayed for videos ingested on/after April 12, 2021 (when the support for multiple audio tracks was introduced). This can be found in the expandable Details area for the video file on an asset's Video tab.

• Note: For videos ingested prior to the feature release, the audio details will not be displayed in the console. In the future, we will determine how to handle populating the audio details for pre-existing video files. Stay tuned.

At this time, Media Manager only supports uploading a single closed captioning file, regardless of the number of audio tracks.

Get the Full Specs and learn more about uploading video files containing multiple audio tracks.

Images

The images section holds your video asset image which appears at the top of your asset page.

Image guidelines

Media Manager requires the ingestion of one mezzanine quality jpg, gif, or png image file per asset.  A mezzanine image is defined as an image with a 16:9 ratio that is at least 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high. Only one image profile per asset is allowed. 

How to add your image file

• Click the Images tab (Figure 1).

Figure 1

• Click the blue Choose button to browse for an image file on your computer (Figure 2.1).
• Once you've found the image you want to use, add it (Figure 2.2).
• Click the Select Profile dropdown menu and click the profile that is associated with your image (Figure 2.3). 
• When finished, click Save (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2

• To change your image, click the pencil icon under the Action column on the right side of the page (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3

• Your current image information displays (Figure 4).

Figure 4

• Click the blue Change button or anywhere in the textbox to select another image and click the profile dropdown menu to select the associated profile (Figure 5.1).
• Click Save (Figure 5.2).

Figure 5

• Your new image displays (Figure 6.1).
• To delete the image, click the trashcan icon located in the Actions column on the right side of the page (Figure 6.2).

Figure 6

• Click Yes, I'm sure to complete the deletion (Figure 7.1).
• Click No, take me back if you want to keep the image (Figure 7.2).

Figure 7

• Your image has been deleted and you can add another by following the same steps listed above (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Chapters & Mid-Roll

What are chapters?

Chapters are short descriptions of individual segments throughout the duration of a video. When a user hovers the mouse over the tickmarks aligned along the chapter timeline at the bottom of the video screen, the title of each chapter appears, giving the user an idea of what is included in each particular short segment, or chapter.  These chapter titles help the viewer track the progression of the video and enable them to skip to a particular chapter of interest by clicking a tickmark. 

Chapters also determine where sponsorship messages (midroll) appear throughout your video. If you have no designated chapters, you cannot add mid-roll to your video. Chapters and mid-roll are designated by a small dot on the scrubber bar when a user hovers over the video. 

What is Mid-roll?

• Mid-roll refers to an advertisement that is placed at various spots throughout your video.

• In addition to mid-roll ads, the video player will carry a standard pre-roll message for streaming video that is 3 minutes in length or longer. This is not dependent on chapters.

• Each mid-roll message can be up to 30 seconds in length.  
• All in-stream message delivery is managed by PBS. All required sponsorship will be served using PBS-provided ad serving and tracking code.

• Mid-rolls are also inserted into long-form programming at select chapter breaks. 

• For chapterized videos longer than 20 minutes, there is a mid-roll ad slot at the first chapter break between 8-15 minutes. The mid-roll ad slot has space for two 30-second (:30) spots. 

• For chapterized videos longer than 40 minutes, a second mid-roll ad slot at the first chapter break between 20-27 minutes is inserted.  

• If there are no chapter breaks identified within these windows, then no mid-roll will be displayed.  

Preview

Click the Preview tab to view the status of different parts of your asset and access the Partner Player code. You can see what has been successfully ingested, which files are missing, and review your asset's metadata. In the Preview Video section, click the play button on the image to view the video as it will display when it is live.

The Preview tab is particularly helpful if you encounter difficulties when publishing your asset. Review to see if crucial elements are missing and preventing you from successfully publishing your asset. The following are some notes about the Preview tab:

• The Title section contains a clickable link only after the asset has been published.
• Click Get Player Embed Code to access the Partner Player code. This code enables PBS producers to embed your asset. Learn more about the Partner Player
• The Preview Video feature is only available after you have successfully added a video file to your asset.
• The Publish button in the upper right corner is only clickable when all required elements have been added to your asset. 
• You can find some of the same information in the persistent status bar. 

Extras

An Extra is a type of Video Asset that can be associated with a Franchise, Show, or Season. Extras can be Clips or Previews only (no Full Length Episodes) and have no associated ads. These assets appear on PBS.org by scrolling down a show page to the Clips and Previews or Extras sections. After you have clicked the Extras tab, the steps for creating a preview or clip exactly mirror the steps involved when creating a preview or clip from the Assets tab. 

• From a Franchise, Show, or Season page, click the Extras tab (Figure 1).

Figure 1

• Click Create Extra (Figure 2).

Figure 2

• Click the Object Type dropdown menu and click Preview or Clip (Figure 3).

Figure 3

• The Title and Slug are prefilled from the Franchise, Show, or Season (Figure 4.1). You can change the title and the slug will automatically reformat to fit the new title.
• Click Save (Figure 4.2).

How to delete an asset

You can delete an asset from the Media Manager dashboard by using the dropdown features that expose layers of objects. 

• Click the right-facing arrow to the left of the title of the season that holds the asset you want to delete.
• Click the plus sign next to the title of the episode that holds the asset you want to delete. 
• Click the trashcan icon to the right of the title of the asset you want to delete.
• Click Yes, I'm sure to confirm deletion.
• The asset has been deleted.

Figure 1
(click image to enlarge)