Setting Up an Automatic Ingestion Folder on Google Drive

This topic explains how to set up a connection to Google Drive and select a folder that Video Cloud will watch to automatically ingest videos placed in the folder.

Introduction

Brightcove allows you to select a folder on the popular cloud storage platform Google Drive that we will automatically ingest videos from.

A watched folder allows you to have users who can upload videos without having to go to Studio, and even if they don't have access to Studio. This is ideal if you need a UGC (user-generated content) solution.

 

Requirements

  • You must have a Google Drive account.
  • You must create a folder specifically for the Brightcove integration.
  • You must create a custom metadata field with these values:
    • Display Name: Ingestion GUID
    • Internal Name: ingestion_guid
    • Type: Text
  • You must whitelist the Brightcove app in your Google Cloud console - instructions follow in the next section.

Whitelist the Brightcove app

You must whitelist the Brightcove app in your Google Cloud console (this must be done by an admin for the Google account):

  1. Submit a Support request to get the Client ID for the Brightcove Google Cloud app.
  2. Once you have the client id from Support, in the Google Cloud Console Admin (https://admin.google.com), go to Security > Access and data control > API controls:
    Google Cloud Console Admin
    Google Cloud Console Admin
  3. Click on MANAGE THIRD PARTY APP ACCESS
    Third Party App Access
    Third Party App Access
  4. Click on Add app and select OAuth App Name or Client ID:
    Add App
    Add App
  5. Enter the client id given to you by Support and search for app:
    Search for App by Client ID
    Search for App by Client ID
  6. The Brightcove app should be found - click the Select button beside it.
  7. This will display a new dialog showing the client id for the Brightcove app - select it and click Select:
    Select the App
    Select the App
  8. A new screen opens where you can configure the app access - select Trusted: Can access all Google services and click Configure:
    Configure App Access
    Configure App Access
  9. The app will now show up in the list of configured apps as Trusted but Not Google Verified. That completes the whitelisting of the app for your Google Drive account.

Setting Up Google Drive

  1. Login to Video Cloud Studio.
  2. In the left navigation, click Integrations.

    integrations module

  3. Click Google Drive.
  4. There are two ways to connect your Google Drive account with the integrations module:
      1. Click Connect account.

      Option one

      2. Click Connect account.

      Option two

  5. A dialog opens requesting permission to access your Google account. After selecting the account you want to work with, set all permissions for Brightcove to access Google Drive data. Click Continue.

    dialogo access

  6. Select the folder where the videos you want to work on are located. Click Select.

    select video

  7. A dialog confirms that the folder has been successfully ingested, and the files are now available in the Media module.

  8. The files are now synchronized with the Media module in inactive status. For more information about the behavior of the videos in the Media module, see Getting Started with the Media Module.

    • How videos are shown in the media module:

Notes and limitations

  • Currently, Brightcove will only ingest videos from the Google Drive folder. Everything in the folder will be ingested, so do not include any files that Brightcove should not have access to.

    If items other than video files are put in the folder, Brightcove will try to ingest them and those ingests will fail, but video objects will be created and show up in the Media module for these non-videos:

    Non-Video Items Ingested
    Non-Video Items Ingested

    These items can be safely deleted.

  • Videos ingested from your Google Drive folder will be added as inactive. You will need to activate them in the Media module (or via the CMS API) before they will be playable. (If you are a Beacon customer, note that the videos will also need to activated before they will be synced to your Beacon account.) See Activating and Deactivating Videos for details on how to activate the videos.
  • You need to create a folder specific to Brightcove only.
  • For each Brightcove account, only one Google Drive folder is allowed for the connection.
  • A Google drive folder can only be connected to one Brightcove account. You can connect different Google Drive folders to different Brightcove accounts.
  • If you have (or add) a large number of videos to the folder, they will be ingested in batches of 50 until ingestion is complete. If you have one or two videos that you need to ingest immediately, you can add those using Studio or the Dynamic Ingest API, and those videos will be prioritized ahead of the ones in your folder.
  • If you remove a video from the folder and later add it back (or add another video with the same file name), it will be ingested as a new video. You cannot replace an existing video by adding a new version to the folder.

Disconnecting a folder

If you wish to disconnect the folder, follow the steps below.

  1. Go to the Integrations module and click on Google Drive.
  2. Click on the email address of the connection creator:
    Click on Email Address
    Click on Email Address
  3. The connected folder will appear - click on the three dots to the right of it and select Disconnect folder:
    Disconnect Folder
    Disconnect Folder

Disconnecting an account

To disconnect your Google Drive account, follow the steps below.

  1. First disconnect the folder using the instructions in the previous section. Disconnecting the account will fail unless the folder is disconnected first.
  2. Go to the Integrations module and click on Google Drive.
  3. Click on the three dots to right of the email address of the user who connected the account and select Disconnect account:
    Disconnect the Account
    Disconnect the Account