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.

Download Sample CSV

All column headings from the below table must be provided within the CSV in the correct order for it to ingest properly. At time of writing, omitted fields can cause errors during ingest like misplaced data or failed titles.

 

 

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

 

Required Fields

Many fields in this document are optional. For optional fields, the column must be present, but the individual cell may be blank.

Some fields are required. If a required field is left blank, the corresponding row will not be read, and the ingester will skip to the next row.

Titles marked as required for episodic are needed to associate files across taxonomy. If omitted, the row will be ingested, but it may not be properly associated with other assets in the same series.

 

Supported Fields

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 for episodic Videos and Season only.

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 asset types.

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 for episodic Videos 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 for episodic Videos and Season 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 for episodic 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, Children, Comedy, Crime, Documentary, Drama, Educational, Fantasy, Faith, Food, Fashion, Gaming, Health, History, Horror, Miniseries, Mystery, Nature, News, Reality, Romance, Science, Science Fiction, Sitcom, Special, Sports, Thriller, Technology

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
Video

Optional.

Sets a video's Geoblock availability in dotstudioPRO. Country availability must be set using comma separated list of ISO Alpha-2 formatted country codes. If left blank, video will be configured with worldwide availability.

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.

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

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

Optional.

Sets video name of asset listed in "Trailer Path".

Trailer Path
Video

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 video 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.

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

 

 

Updated