CSV Ingest: CSV Manifest Spec

Overview

This article outlines the requirements for CSV Ingest Manifest documents. CSV Manifest documents list titles and metadata that will be ingested into DSP via CSV Ingest. They also tell our system where it can find all of the videos, images, and timed-text files that will be ingested.

To learn more about CSV Ingest, click here.

Format

CSV Manifests must be provided as a UTF-8 comma separated values file. XLSX cannot be parsed. Each row in the document represents all metadata for one of a video (movie or tv episode), season, or tv series. Up to 100 items can be ingested per document.

For serial/episodic content, all seasons, videos, and series level data for a given series should be included in the same CSV Manifest. Breaking up a series into multiple documents can cause taxonomy issues.

Column Headers

CSV files are parsed based on the below list of valid headers; if a column is passed without a valid header (i.e. blank, incorrect spelling or nomenclature), it will be ignored.

Many headers in this document are optional. The minimum required columns are:

• Taxonomy
• ID
• Parent ID*
• Title
• Series Title*
• Season Number*
• Episode Number*
• One of: Video Path, HLS Path, MPD Path

* used to link episodic content - these headers are always required, but individual fields can be blank for movies

Some headers are conditionally required:

• Duration (required if passing MPD Path, HLS Path, or Cue Point values)
• Custom Fields (must be provided in corresponding Field/Value paris)
• Timed Text # Language (must be passed if providing a timed text file)

Sample documents can be downloaded from your dotstudioPRO dashboard:

Ingest & Export Settings/CSV Ingest/Sample CSV Template

Media Asset Paths

Some fields are used to ingest media asset files (videos, images, timed text files, etc.). These are denoted with the word "Path", and require a valid public HTTP URL pointing to the assets that will be ingested for a given video, season, or series.

• If media files are provided in the same location as the CSV manifest, only the filename needs to be provided. 
  Example: StarWars.mp4
  
   
• If media files will be stored in a directory/path/subfolder away from the CSV manifest, then a full HTTP URL path must be provided. 
  Example: https://mymediapath/folder/StarWars.mp4

Paths and filenames ideally should not contain spaces. Spaces can be denoted with “%20”.

• Incorrect: Star Wars folder/Star Wars.jpg
• Correct: Star%20Wars%20folder/Star%20Wars.jpg

ID & Parent ID

Each row item (video, season, series) must be assigned a unique ID. This is used for the ingest process only and will not appear on the client’s dashboard. The ID is used to determine which assets have been ingested, and which ones are new. The same ID value must never be reused, even across different documents. Without an ID, an asset will not be ingested.

The Parent ID value is only used for episodic content. It refers to the parent asset of a given video or season. Series ID’s should not be used for standalone content or series level data.

• tv episodes should list the ID of their parent season
• seasons should list the ID of their parent series

Supported Headers

Column Heading	Use For	Description
Taxonomy	Video Season Series	Required for all row items. Determines whether to read row as a video asset or a channel asset (season/series) in DSP. Valid Values: Video, Season, Series
ID	Video Season Series	Required for all row items. Used to determine uniqueness of title and connecting episodes/seasons/series together. This must be a unique string (i.e GUID or SKU), and should not match a title that was previous ingested to DSP. ID values should not include any special characters or control characters. Example ID Values: "12345", "frasier_S1", "Xm789plrd12", "theempirestrikesback", "frasier_E108"
Parent ID	Video Season	Required header, required for episodic content. Associates video/season with the correct parent asset. If left blank, the asset will not be associated with any parent season or series. Must match the ID value of the asset's parent asset. If omitted, episodes/seasons will not be associated in dotstudioPRO. For tv episodes: use the ID of the parent SEASON. For Seasons: use the ID of the parent SERIES.
Title	Video Season Series	Required for all row items. Sets the video/channel title in dotstudioPRO. For Seasons, best practice is "[Series Name] - Season [#]", episodes should avoid the series name or episode numbers. Non-UTF-8 characters are not supported.
Duration	Video	Required for videos using cue points or HLS/DASH format. Sets the duration of the video in dotstudioPRO. This value is only when providing a URL to video that will be hosted remotely (HLS or DASH) or if providing advertising cue points.
Display Title	Season Series	Optional. Sets the Display title in dotstudioPRO.
Video Type	Video	Optional. Sets the Video Type in dotstudioPRO. Must be a single, valid value from below. Valid Values: None, Full Movie, Full Episode, Teaser Trailer, Behind the Scenes, Commentary, Concert, Condensed Game, Current Preview, Documentary, Excerpt, Event, Full Game, Game Play, Highlights, Instructional Interview, Live Broadcast, Music Video, Outtake, Performance, Recap, Short, Short Film, Sneak Peek, Special, Web Exclusive, Web-series
Programming Type	Season Series	Optional. Sets the Video Type for Channels in dotstudioPRO. Must be a single, valid value from below. Valid Values: None, Full Movie, Series, Behind the Scenes, Commentary, Concert, Condensed Game, Current Preview, Documentary, Excerpt, Full Game, Game Play, Highlights, Instructional, Interview, Live Broadcast, Music Video, Outtake, Performance, Recap, Short, Short Film, Sneak Peek, Special, Web Exclusive, Web-series
Series Title	Video Season	Required header, required for episodic content. Series and Season only. Sets the series title for videos and channels in dotstudioPRO. Used to create episode playlists, and associate videos with seasonal Channels. If omitted from an episodic item, playlists and channels will not be properly generated.
Season Number	Video Season	Required header, required for episodic content. Videos and Seasons only. Sets the season number value for videos and channels in dotstudioPRO. Used to create episode playlists, and associate videos with seasonal Channels. If omitted from an episodic item, playlists and channels will not be properly generated. Values must be a valid integer. Season codes or production numbers (S0001) cannot be accepted.
Episode Number	Video	Required header, required for episodic content. Videos only. Sets the episode number for videos in dotstudioPRO. Used to determine episode within playlists. If omitted from an episodic video, playlists and channels will not be properly generated.   Values must be a valid integer. Episode codes or production numbers (E104) cannot be accepted.
Description	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets the description value in dotstudioPRO.  Must be 500 characters or fewer.
Short Description	Video	Optional.   Sets the short description value in dotstudioPRO.  Must be 250 characters or fewer.
Tags	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets tags in dotstudioPRO. Multiple tags may be entered as a comma separated list.
Genres	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets genres in dotstudioPRO. Multiple tags may be entered as a comma separated list. Must be one of the below values OR a valid preconfigured custom value from the user's dashboard.   Valid Values:Action, Adventure, Animals, Animated, Anime, Art, Auto, Biography, Children, Comedy, Crime, Dance, Documentary, Drama, Educational, Faith, Fantasy, Fashion, Fishing, Food, Gaming, Game Show, Health, History, Holiday, Home Improvement, Horror, Hunting, LGBT, Medical, Miniseries, Military, Music, Musical, Mystery, Nature, News, Paranormal, Politics, Reality, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Science, Science Fiction, Sitcom, Soap, Special, Sports, Standup, Suspense, Talk, Technology, Theater, Travel, Thriller, War, Weather, Western
Actors	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets actor value in dotstudioPRO. Multiple tags may be entered as a comma separated list. Format: First Last, First Last Example: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford
Writers	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets writer value in dotstudioPRO. Multiple tags may be entered as a comma separated list. Format: First Last, First Last Example: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford
Directors	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets director value in dotstudioPRO. Multiple tags may be entered as a comma separated list. Format: First Last, First Last Example: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford
Original Release Date	Video Season Series	Optional. Sets the original release date (the first date that the content was broadcast/premiered) in dotstudioPRO.   Format: YYYY-MM-DD Example: 2020-12-31
Publish Date	Video	Optional. Sets the date for content to be published in dotstudioPRO.   Format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.000Z Example: 2020-01-31T20:00:00.000Z
Sunset Date	Video	Optional. Sets the date for content to be sunset in dotstudioPRO.   Format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.000Z Example: 2020-01-31T20:00:00.000Z
Year	Video Season Series	Optional. Sets the original release year in dotstudioPRO.   Format: YYYY Example: 2020
Rating	Video Season Series	Optional. Sets the rating value in dotstudioPRO. Must be a valid TV Parental Guidelines or MPAA rating. Valid Values:g, pg, pg-13, r, nc-17, nr,  tv-14, tv-y, tv-y7, tv-g,  tv-pg, tv-ma, x
Rating Reasons	Video Season Series	Optional. Sets the rating reasons value in dotstudioPRO. Multiple values are supported if provided as comma separated list. Must be a valid value from below. Valid Values: Suggestive Dialogue, Coarse or Crude Language, Sexual Situations, Violence, Fantasy Violence, Nudity, Drug Use
Country	Video Season Series	Optional. Sets the production country value in dotstudioPRO. Must be a valid ISO-Alpha 2 digit country code.
Language	Video Season Series	Optional.   Sets the language value in dotstudioPRO. Must be one of the below valid values. Valid Values: English, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese Unspecified, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kurdish, Latin, Malay, Marathi, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Sindhi, Sinhala, Somali, Sotho, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zulu
Gracenote ID	Video Series	Optional. Sets Gracenote ID for Videos and Series.
Nielsen DAR Category	Video	Optional. Sets Nielsen Categories for Videos. Must be a valid value from below. Valid Values:
IAB Category	Video	Optional. Sets IAB Categories for Videos. Must be a valid value from below. Valid Values:
Copyright	Video Season Series	Optional. Sets copyright value in dotstudioPRO. Generally formatted as "Copyright Holder YYYY".   Example: dotstudioPRO 2024
Studio (Content Provider)	Video	Optional. Sets the Studio/Content Owner value for videos in dotstudioPRO.
Geoblock Include	Video	Optional. Sets a video's Geoblock availability in dotstudioPRO. Omitted territories will be Geoblocked. Country availability must be set using comma separated list of ISO Alpha-2 formatted country codes. The value ALL will set title available worldwide. Example: US, CA, MX
Geoblock Exclude	Video	Optional. Sets a video's Geoblock availability in dotstudioPRO. Listed territories will be Geoblocked. Country availability must be set using comma separated list of ISO Alpha-2 formatted country codes.  Example: US, CA, MX
Preroll Enabled	Video	Optional. Enables/disables pre-roll ads for a video. "Y" will enable ads. "N" or a blank field will disable them. Valid Values: Y,N
Midroll Enabled	Video	Optional. Enables/disables mid-roll ads for a video. "Y" will enable ads. "N" or a blank field will disable them. Valid Values: Y,N
Cue Points	Video	Optional. Configures video mid-roll ad breaks. Multiple break times can be provided as a comma separated list. Values should represent the start time of each ad break, expressed in seconds, and must be an integer. A duration value must be provided for each item that includes mid-roll ad times. Example: 491, 966, 1397
Number of Midrolls	Video	Optional. Set number of mid-roll ads per ad break. Value must be an integer. Each mid-roll will be configured to include the same number of ads.
Postroll Enabled	Video	Optional. Enables/disables post-roll ads for a video. "Y" will enable ads. "N" or a blank field will disable them. Valid Values: Y,N
Custom Field 1 Name	Video	Optional. If provided, MUST be provided in corresponding pairs. Sets custom field and value on video level in dotstudioPRO. Custom fields and custom values are passed as corresponding pairs. Up to five custom fields/values are supported.
Custom Field 1 Value	Video
Custom Field 2 Name	Video
Custom Field 2 Value	Video
Custom Field 3 Name	Video
Custom Field 3 Value	Video
Custom Field 4 Name	Video
Custom Field 4 Value	Video
Custom Field 5 Name	Video
Custom Field 5 Value	Video
Video Path	Video	Required for Videos. Ingests video from path. If media files are provided in the same location as the CSV manifest, only the filename needs to be provided in the path field. If media files will be stored in a directory/path/subfolder away from the CSV manifest, then a full HTTP URL path must be provided. Video files will be encoded and stored by DSP. HLS file paths will be stored in DSP database, but will not be encoded or stored by DSP. Valid File Types: MP4, MOV, MPG, M3U8   Files must be smaller than 20GB.
Timed Text 1 Path	Video	Optional. Up to five timed text files can be ingested. Timed text files must include a path, language, and kind. Path and language are necessary to store any timed text file, kind is optional and will be set contextually if not provided.   Path: HTTP path or filename of timed text file to be ingested. Language: must be a valid language value (see language field above)  Kind: must be one of closed captions, subtitles, or sdh (optional) Supported File Types: VTT or SRT
Timed Text 1 Language	Video
Timed Text 1 Kind	Video
Timed Text 2 Path	Video
Timed Text 2 Language	Video
Timed Text 2 Kind	Video
Timed Text 3 Path	Video
Timed Text 3 Language	Video
Timed Text 3 Kind	Video
Timed Text 4 Path	Video
Timed Text 4 Language	Video
Timed Text 4 Kind	Video
Timed Text 5 Path	Video
Timed Text 5 Language	Video
Timed Text 5 Kind	Video
Trailer Name	Video, Season, Series	Optional. Sets video name of asset listed in "Trailer Path".
Trailer Path	Video, Season, Series	Optional. Ingests trailer file from path and mirrors all values from video except for Title, Closed Captions, Trailer, Ad Breaks, and Asset type. Will automatically associate Trailers with parent channel in dotstudioPRO. Video files will be encoded and stored by DSP. HLS file paths will be stored in DSP database, but will not be encoded or stored by DSP. Valid File Types: MP4, MOV, MPG, M3U8   Files must be smaller than 20GB.
Poster Path	Video Season Series	Optional. Ingests poster image file from HTTP path or filename. Valid File Types: JPG, PNG, JPEG
Wallpaper Path	Video Season Series	Optional. Ingests wallpaper image file from HTTP path or filename. Valid File Types: JPG, PNG, JPEG
Thumbnail Path	Video Season Series	Optional. Ingests thumbnail image file from HTTP path or filename. Valid File Types: JPG, PNG, JPEG
Logo Path	Season Series	Optional. Ingests logo image file from HTTP path or filename. Valid File Types: JPG, PNG, JPEG
DASH Path	Video	Optional. Ingests MPD (dash) version of video from path. Must be a valid public HTTP path.
SD BIF Path	Video	Optional. Ingests Standard Definition BIF file from path.
HD BIF Path	Video	Optional. Ingests High Definition BIF file from path.
FHD BIF Path	Video	Optional. Ingests Full High Definition BIF file from path.
Channel Custom Field 1 Name	Season Series	Optional. If provided, MUST be provided in corresponding pairs. Sets custom field and value on channel level in dotstudioPRO. Custom fields and custom values are passed as corresponding pairs. Up to five custom fields/values are supported.
Channel Custom Field 1 Value	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 2 Name	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 2 Value	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 3 Name	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 3 Value	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 4 Name	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 4 Value	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 5 Name	Season Series
Channel Custom Field 5 Value	Season Series
VTT Trickplay Path	Video	Optional. Ingests VTT Trickplay file from path.

Updated January 09, 2026 20:01