Creating and Managing Playlists

A playlist is a collection of videos that are grouped together in a particular order for playback in a player. The Media module makes it easy to create playlists and add videos to a playlist. After you've created your playlist, you can publish a playlist to a player. For more information on publishing playlists, see Publishing Videos and Playlists with the Media Module.

For more information about playlists, including best practices and tips for using them effectively, see Introduction to Playlists.

Types of playlists

There are two types of playlists:

• Manual - With a manual playlist, you assign specific videos to the playlist and re-order them manually
• Smart - With a smart playlist, the videos in the playlist are constructed automatically, based on video parameters. Parameters include name, tags, description, custom fields and date fields. Smart playlists are dynamic and automatically update based upon the videos in your media library and the rules that define the playlist.

A maximum of 1,000 videos can be added to a playlist (both Manual and Smart). There is no limit to the number of playlists that can be created. The videos that are initially loaded into a playlist in the player is determined by the type of playlist:

• Manual Playlists - Videos are loaded into the playlist based upon the order of the videos in the playlist
• Smart Playlists - Videos are loaded into the playlist based upon the Play Order playlist setting

For information on programmatically retrieving additional videos into a playlist, see the Playback API Paging player sample.

Viewing all playlists

To view all the playlists in the account, in the side navigation panel, click All playlists. The page will display:

• Playlist name - Name of the playlist
• Reference ID - Reference ID for the playlist
• Parameters - Parameters used to create the playlist (smart playlists only)
• Updated date - Date the playlist was last updated
• Video Count - Number of videos in the playlist

Creating a playlist

To create a playlist, follow these steps:

1. Open the Media module.
2. In the side navigation panel, click Create playlist. The Create a playlist dialog will open.

   

3. Enter a Playlist name.
4. Click on a Playlist type.
5. Click Create playlist. The panel will close and reopen. For smart playlists, configure the smart playlist parameters.
6. Click the Overview tab.
7. Configure the overview settings as needed.
   • Name - playlist name
   • Reference ID - A unique ID assigned by a publisher to a playlist
   • Description - Playlist description
   • Show Playlist in Sidebar - If checked, the playlist will appear in the sidebar

     

Configuring smart playlist settings

If you are creating a Smart playlist, click the Smart tab to configure the following settings.

• Play Order - Controls the order in which videos in the playlist are played. The following options are available.

  Play Order	Description
  Activated Date (Oldest First)	Based on the date the video was activated, oldest videos first
  Activated Date (Newest First)	Based on the date the video was activated, newest videos first
  Video Name (A - Z)	Alphabetical by video name
  Total Plays	Based on the total video plays
  Trailing Week Plays	Based on the trailing week total video plays. Note that the trailing week plays data maintained in the video metadata may be up to 2 days old so the videos you get may not match what you see if you look at video views over the past 7 days in the Analytics module.
  Start Date (Oldest First)	Based on the date the video was scheduled to start, oldest videos first. If a video does not have a start date specified, then it will not appear in a playlist ordered by start date. Note: Video scheduling is available only to Video Cloud Enterprise accounts.
  Start Date (Newest First)	Based on the date the video was scheduled to start, newest videos first. If a video does not have a start date specified, then it will not appear in a playlist ordered by start date. Note: Video scheduling is available only to Video Cloud Enterprise accounts.

• Limit Number of Videos - Enter the maximum number of videos that should be in the playlist (default is 100, maximum is 1,000)

Smart playlist parameters

The Parameters section is used to define which videos will appear in the playlist. The following parameters are supported.

• Tags - Video tags are used to define the videos that will appear in the playlist. Enter one or more tags (separated by commas). The Tags dropdown provides these options:
  • Match any - Include videos that have one or more of the tags listed
  • Match all - Require that all the videos in the playlist have all the tags that are listed
• Name - The video name is used to define the videos that will appear in the playlist. Enter a video name to search for.
• Description - The video's short and long description are used to define the videos that will appear in the playlist. Enter a description to search for.
• Custom fields - The video's custom fields are used to define the videos that will appear in the playlist. Select a custom field from the dropdown list and then select/enter a custom field value. For List type custom fields:
  • Match any - Include videos that have any of the custom field values listed
  • Exclude - Exclude videos with the selected custom field values listed
• Updated date - The date the video was last updated
• Created date - The date the video was created
• Last activated date - The date the video was last activated
• Scheduled start date - The date the video was scheduled to start
• Scheduled end date - The date the video was scheduled to end

The Name, Description and Custom fields (Text type) options support these options:

• Text to include - Include videos that have the text in the name, short or long description or custom field
• Text to exclude - Exclude videos that have the text in the name, short or long description fields or custom field

All of the date parameters support a From and To date.

Using multiple parameters

Multiple parameters can be entered by clicking Add a parameter and then entering an additional parameter. By default, multiple parameters will be evaluated using an OR operation. To change how multiple parameters are evaluated, click the selector icon () next to the Parameters heading.

In the following example, all videos that are tagged birds or animals or have a Subject custom field value of Animals will be added to the playlist.

Click Apply to save the changes.

Adding videos to a manual playlist

To add videos to a manual playlist, follow these steps:

1. Check the boxes next to the videos that should be added to the playlist.
2. Click More > Add to Playlist at the top of the page.
3. Select the playlist to add the videos to.

   

4. Click Add . Videos added to a manual playlist will be added to the top of the playlist.

Changing the order of videos in a playlist

To change the order of the videos in a playlist, follow the steps based upon the type of playlist you are working with.

Changing the order of videos in a manual playlist

1. Open the playlist using one of these methods:
   • Click on the playlist name in the side navigation panel
   • Click All playlists in the side navigation panel, locate the playlist and click the playlist name link.
2. The list of videos in the playlist will appear.
3. Click on a video and drag it to its new location in the order. The dark line indicates the new position.

Editing playlist settings

To edit the settings for a manual or smart playlist, follow these steps:

1. If the playlist is displayed in the sidebar, click on the playlist and then click the down arrow next to the playlist and click Edit Settings.
2. If the playlist is not displayed in the sidebar, click the All playlists heading in the side navigation, locate the playlist and click the playlist name link and then click Edit Settings.
3. Edit the playlist settings and then click Apply .

If the playlist is displayed in the side navigation panel, you can click on the playlist and then click the down arrow next to the playlist and click Edit Settings.

Deleting a playlist

To delete a playlist, follow these steps:

1. Click All playlists to display a list of all the playlists.
2. Click the checkbox next to the playlist to delete.
3. Click the delete button ().
4. Click Delete Playlist to confirm the deletion.

If the playlist is displayed in the side navigation panel, you can click on the playlist and then click the down arrow next to the playlist and click Delete Playlist .

Removing videos from a manual playlist

To remove a video from a manual playlist, follow these steps:

1. Open the manual playlist using one of these methods:
   • Click on the playlist name in the side navigation panel
   • Click All playlists in the side navigation panel, locate the playlist and click the playlist name link.
2. The list of videos in the playlist will appear.
3. Click the checkbox next to the video(s) to delete.
4. Click Remove from Playlist.

You can also remove a video from a manual playlist by editing the video properties. In the Categorization section, delete the playlist from the Manual Playlists section.