Categories and Playlists
Playlists separate and organize your content. We often use the term "category" and "playlist" interchangeably because a playlist is generally used to categorize content. Playlists are used to categorize your content across the web, Roku, and Fire TV.
There are two types of playlists available in the streaming dashboard: Manual Playlists and Tag-Based Playlists.
Every recorded stream and uploaded video automatically gets added to the "All Videos" or "All Archives" playlist.
If you'd like to sort the content into additional categories, we can create new playlists for you. Once we do this, all you have to do is either add the video to the playlist manually, or tag it, and watch it be added automatically.
We'll go over the process for both types of playlist below.
Tag-Based
Archives appear in a playlist if they have the appropriate tag that a playlist is looking for.
All you need to do here is make sure that the videos you want in the playlist, have the tags the playlist is expecting. Just edit any video and enter the tags into the tag-field.
So for example, a basketball game you wanted to appear in the basketball category, may have these tags:
all, basketball
Which would result in it appearing in the "All Videos" section AND the "Basketball" sections on your websites and apps.
IMPORTANT: If your video has the tag "all" or "show" - do not remove it. This is the tag responsible for making sure it appears in the "All Videos" playlist.
Please note that while you can set tags on videos yourself - you need the playlists setup first - if you would like additional playlists created - please contact us and we'll do this for you. Do not attempt to create the playlists yourself, as your sites and apps won't be updated.
Manual Playlist
Archives are added manually by selecting them and pressing a button
Using manual playlists is simple. To add content to a manual playlist, simply navigate to the 'Videos' page in your streaming dashboard, check the box next to a video, and select "Add to Playlist" then select the desired playlist.
To re-order or remove items from a playlist, navigate to the 'Video' page again. In the left-hand sidebar, select 'Playlists', then select the desired playlist
You can remove a video from a playlist by checking the box and then clicking the 'Remove' button.
You can re-order videos by dragging on the handles (they look like a grid of dots)
Deactivating Videos
The "deactivate" option completely deactivates the video on the server, so that nobody can see it, not even you. It also hides the video from any websites or apps where viewers might see it. It's easy to re-activate it at any time.
To deactivate a video, simply tick the box next to it, and click the blue deactivate button in the menu. You can reactivate them the same way.
Note: Deactivated videos may remain listed on Roku and other platforms for up to 24 hours. Meaning they may still be shown in the menu, but won't be viewable. This is due to the delay Roku implements in re-fetching our feeds.
Hiding Videos From Public Only
De-activating a video is the quick and easy option for hiding it. But let's say you want to keep it available to people with private-links, for example. If you want to just keep a video out of the public-eye, but keep it active - there's an alternative to de-activating.
To hide a video completely from all tag-based playlists, add the "hide" tag. This will hide it everywhere from any tag-based playlists (including "All Videos/All Archives").
HOWEVER - It will NOT hide the videos from manual-playlists (if any exist and contain the video). The video will need to be manually removed from the manual playlist as shown in the previous section.
If you wanted to hide a video from a tag-based playlist, you'd tag it as such:
hide
If you want, you can leave the existing tags as well, the 'hide' tag will override them - and of course, we recommend leaving the "all" tag if it's present.
Closing Tips and Good Things to Know
- Roku and Fire TV won't display videos without descriptions. So if you upload a video, make sure you give it a description, even if it's just the title of the video repeated in the description. Recorded streams will always have a description, so you only need to worry about this when uploading something.
- Roku and Fire TV can take up to 24 hours to update, Roku is typically slower than Fire TV
- Remember - let us create the playlists, so we can make sure they're setup properly and implemented into your apps and website. If you've already made your own playlists, just let us know and we'll review them and implement them for you.
