Uploading Content Using FTP
From ThirdPresence Wiki
File Transfer Protocol is a simple and easy way to upload the video files to ThirdPresence system. FTP can be used to manually transfer video files as well as scripted e.g. from CMS or similar system to automatically upload video files to ThirdPresence.
ThirdPresence will periodically check the FTP folder for any new content. If new content items (video files) are found, they are placed in the encoding queue and encoded in due course. ThirdPresence will also assign a unique id number for each video file. The exact time it takes to do the transcoding opreation for a video file after FTP upload is dependend on the pricing plan you have. The details for the maximum queue time per plan is detailed on the features sheet.
To retrieve a list of your content that has been encoded, you can use RSS feed located at http://[mysite].thirdpresence.com/dls/t/mrss.jsp?cat=-1 to get direct links to the video content and start publishing the video files on your mobile web site or mobile web application. For more information about publishing your content, see Publishing your content.
Uploading manually with a FTP client
You can use any available FTP client to connect to the ThirdPresence FTP server, for example WinSCP client for Windows or Cyberduck for Mac OS X. The FTP server address is ftp.thirdpresence.com. Please use the login and password that were sent to you in the sign-up email to access the server.
When you are logged in to the FTP server, you can upload your video files into the home directory of your account. Please consult your FTP client's help files and/or web site for details of the upload process.
In case you want to add additional metadata, e.g. release or exipration dates for the video or description, please see chapter Adding metadata to video file.
Integration using FTP
Video files can be pushed automatically to ThirdPresence using FTP from any client application or back-end system. The most simple way is to use existing functionality available in most software platforms to connect to ThirdPresence over FTP using the given username/password combination and then proceed to upload the video files.
In most integration cases adding relevant metadata is also needed to achieve the needed results (meaningful descriptions and release/expiration dates for videos). This can be done by creating a metadata file per each video file and then uploading it alongside the video file. See chapter for more information Adding metadata to video file.
The recommended way to implement the FTP integration is to follow this process:
1.Before logging in to the system, create all required metadata files and make sure that the video files are available
1. Log in to ThirdPresence using FTP and given username / password combination
2. Start uploading video files one-by-one:
2a. First upload the metadata file for a video (if you want to have one)
2b. Upload the video file
3. Logout from the system
Adding metadata to uploaded video file
There are two different ways to add metadata to video files. First one is to constantly update text file called description.txt on the FTP upload directory containing the metadata to all video files or then create an individual metadata file for each video file.
Note that it is not mandatory to have any metadata to any uploaded video file, ThirdPresence will convert and manage the video files also without associated metadata.
Individual files for adding metadata
Creating an individual metadata file for each video file is the preferred solution for managing video-related metadata. Each individual metadata file associated to a video file must be named identically except that the extension need to be changed to .txt. For example, if you have a video file named thisisvideofile.mp4, the related metadata file for that video would be thisisvideofile.txt.
The contents of the metadata file contain a number of tags and related values. The tags and values are separated from each other using semicolon (":"). Following tags are used in metadata files:
| Tag | Description | Mandatory |
| file | Name of the video file | yes |
| title | Video file title | yes |
| description | Long-form description of the content | no |
| pubdate | Publishing date (i.e. when the video should be made available). Format is "dd.MM.YYYY hh:mm". Use UTC time when defining the date. If publishing date is not defined, the video will be made available ASAP | no |
| expiredate | Expiration date for the video. If expiration date is not defined, the video will never expire. Use UTC time when defining the date. Format is "dd.MM.YYYY hh:mm" | no |
| thumbnail | URL to thumbnail picture. If thumbnail URL is not defined, ThirdPresence will automatically create the thumbnail for video. | no |
| providerid | Id which provider can be use to identify the video. | no |
An example contents of metadata video file Somevideofile.txt:
file:Somevideofile.mp4 title:This is some video file description:Here is a long description of the some video file pubdate:05.10.2009 11:40:00 expiredate:06.10.2009 11:40:00 thumbnail:http://someurl.com/t1.jpg providerid:1XXXXX1
Adding video metadata to description.txt
You can optionally create, update and upload a text file called description.txt if you want to provide more information (metadata) such as the title and description of the video file. In this single file, all metadata related to all video files are specified.
The contents of description.txt is equal to individual metadata files, only difference is that metadata to all of the available video files are described inside the singe file.
An example of description.txt file is simply as follows:
File:video1.mpg Title:This is the title for video1 Description:This is the description for video1 File:video2.avi Title:This is the title for video2 Description:This is the description for video2 File:...This page was last modified on 30 January 2012, at 09:25.