Playlists

Contents

A playlist is a list of video and audio clips. There are two types of playlists: smart playlists and static playlists.

In short: smart playlists are generated based on specific filters, enabling them to update automatically. Static playlists contain content that has been added manually.

A playlist can be applied in many ways:

Directly embedding a playlist onto a website
Provide related items in the endscreen of a single embedded media clip.
Provide content in Channels

1.0 | Smart playlist

A smart playlist dynamically collects media clips based on one or multiple filters. For example: setting a filter to only include videos published in the last 10 days, will result in a smart playlist that will continually update to only show videos published in the past 10 days.

More advanced solr queries can also be applied (recommended for advanced users only).

1.1 | Creating a smart playlist

To create a smart playlist, click “create new smart playlist” and fill in a title and description.

Use suggests
Select “Use Suggests” to find related content based on the context that the playlist is embedded in. That is: contextual information from the website or article will be used to select content within the playlist’s filters.

Is slideshow
Only applies when the playlist is used in a TV Playout schedule serving images. More information on TV Playout to be added soon.

Allow dynamic filters
Enabling this will allow this playlist to use dynamically set values as input for its filters.

1.2 | Use filter sets

Set a filter for the playlist based on metadata, such as title, published date or source ID. Newly uploaded videos that meet the conditions setup by the filter, will be automatically to the playlist.

Filters work by using the “and/or” principle:

Add multiple filters within a filter set by clicking “+add filter” within the filter set. For example: only include content where media type is ‘video’ or ‘audio’.
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Apply multiple filters by clicking “+add filter set”. For example: only include content where the media type is ‘video’ and content published in the last 2 months.

Alternatively, you can use a solr query to filter the playlist. Selecting the solr query option overrides previously set filters. Solr queries is recommended for experienced users. Read more about the solr documentation.

1.3 | Limit & sort results

Besides applying filter sets, the playlist can be limited to a certain number of videos. Apply sorting to rearrange the order of content:

Make sure to activate your playlist in the right top corner and click “save”.

2.0 | Static playlist

A static playlist contains clips that have been added manually. Static playlists will only be updated when a user in the OVP manually adds or removes content to or from the playlist.

2.1 | Create a static playlist

In the playlist overview, select “Create new static playlist” and fill in a title and description.

2.2 | Add content

Select media clips to add to your playlist. You can use the filter or search bar to find specific media clips.

2.3 | Sort results

Re-order the playlist content according to certain criteria. For example: sort on published date (old to new or reversed):

Make sure to activate the playlist in the right top corner and click “save”.

3.0 | Use playlist to create an RSS feed

You can use playlist to create an RSS feed. RSS feeds can then be used to automatically update your podcast showlist on podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc.

Go to the tab “RSS Configuration” and click “Enable RSS”
Enter all the required information.
The feed URL is listed as ”vodcast URL” on the right side of the screen:
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4.0 | Using a playlist

4.1 | Playlists for endscreen

Use playlists to automatically play the next video or to show related items in the End Screen. To automatically play next clips, go to Playouts > Start & end screen and check the box for “Automatically play next clip”.

When the current clip ends, another clip will start playing after a five second delay. Viewers will see a screen with a countdown and the option to stop watching.

For related items, check the box “Show related items” and select the preferred playlist. There are options to randomise the order for related items and to use the deep link for related items.

4.2 | Playlists for channels

Create an overview page for a playlist by generating a Channels page. Go to Channels, fill out the required information and select the preferred playout and playlist.

4.3 | Playlists for video sitemaps

A playlist can be used to create a video sitemap. Because the playlist is created in a publication you still need to add it to your website. This can be done manually or automatically by adding a bit of server side code to your website.

Note:

When adding playlist manually you will need to update the XML every time you add a new video. We therefore recommend that you add server side code to your website to retrieve the playlist automatically. Please contact your webmaster to write & implement this code.

When the code has been added, the URL of the page that hosts your video sitemap can then be added to Google Search Console.

Information for webmasters:
When /sitemap/{playlist id}.xml is issued a sitemap containing the latest 10.000 published (and not under embargo) media-clips of mediatype video will be output in video sitemap xml format.

A request should follow this format:

/sitemap/{playlist id}.xml?[forcePfx]=true&[urlprefix]=&[urlpostfix]=

Required parameters	Type	Description
{playlist id}	`int`	The id of the playlist that is used for the sitemap output
Optional parameters
[forcePfx]	`string`	Should prefix and/or postfix be used for the clip urls
[urlPrefix]	`string`	Will be pasted in front of the id of the clip in the generated url. Should start with a valid protocol identifier.
[urlPostfix]	`string`	Will be pasted after the id of the clip in the generated url.

The URL should contain your publication and the ID of the cliplist that functions as your sitemap. This way, the sitemap on your website tells Google the videos are accessible on your own domain rather than the video platform.

Add this new sitemap to Google Search Console. The sitemap URL in the Search Console looks as follows: /videositemap/videositemap.php?publication=yourcompanyname&id=1234567891234567