VOD Upload

From YSTV Documentation Wiki

Further reading: On Demand Video.

This tutorial highlights uploading to the YSTV website. Not the nicest but it's what we've got.

Before upload

Ensure that the finished file has been exported with one of the export profiles, available here on the Google Drive. Then make the filename in the following format:

{calendar year}_{production_name}_{term}{week number}

  • Calendar year being the 2 digit format of a year i.e. 21.
  • Production name having no spaces i.e. CookingThymeWithRhys.
  • Term being the current term out of these options: aut / sum / spr.
  • Week number being the current academic week i.e. 05. (If it is being released in the holiday, use the previous term start as your base and just count until the current week)

So you should have something like: 21_CookingThymeWithRhys_aut05

CookingThymeWithRhysFile.png

Upload to Finished Shows

The website requires you to first make the file available on a network drive called "Finished Shows". If it is a series being uploaded, please make a folder for it (without spaces in it's name) and store the export in there.

In the station

Simply move the finished export to the network drive.

Finished Shows drive.png

Remote

Visit files.ystv.co.uk and login with the File Browser credentials, available in Vault. This is effectively a web UI of Finished Shows. Then either drag n' drop or click the upload button in the corner of the site to start the upload.

The internal website

Now that the file is now available to the website. We've now got to add it to the website. Go to watch admin site and click on Video Boxes.

Video boxes

Really a folder which can contain more folders and also videos. These allow us to group productions and also decide what the URL will look like. So a production for the famous Cooking Thyme series, would be able to have a URL path of cooking-thyme.

Note: Every production will need to be inside of a video box

So either create a new video box or use an existing one. If you are making a new one try to keep the "URL Name" clean and simple, and if you have any concerns with filling in the info click the help button and it will provide documentation for how to fill it in.

Once decided, click Add Video.

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Adding the video

Complete the form, clicking the help button if necessary. You will then be greeted by a file explorer, this will allow you to browse Finished Shows once again, select the file that you uploaded and click next.

The video will then be added to the encode queue. You can see from the video page all of the video files that it is making for the website, all of these need to have an Encode Status of Done, before it can be made public. To check the status you can refresh the video page and it will update with the current status. If anything is showing an error, retry it first, then if that fails get in touch with the computing team.

Once you are satisfied it is all ready, simply click is enabled checkbox on the video and it will become available to watch on the website. The latest video's playlist will not update instantly, but won't take too long to update either.

Adding Credit / Admins

Credit is currently stored at the video box level. Simply, click Add Member. This was designed to include multi-year events so that is why it asks for dates. This also allows you to add someone to become an administrator of a video (although with the current lax permissions, it's likely they already have access).

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Troubleshooting

I can't see my uploaded file in the internal site browser

Try un-expanding and re-expanding the folder which has your video on it, it will cause the website to check again.

How do I check the status of all my uploads

On the navbar, there is a section called Encode Queue. This will show all jobs being worked on and update automatically. Once it has finished a job, it will dissapear from that page.

The video isn't getting processed

Get in touch with the computing team, it's likely our encoder program has crashed and needs restarting.