Zype Product Updates: New CMS “Category” search tools, Advanced Subtitles & Caption Management and IFA Support in Apps Creator, and More!

We're focused on building the most comprehensive end-to-end video infrastructure platform available to help you increase engagement and monetization of content across all your streaming platforms. Read on for the latest product updates out this month and a preview of what’s to come next month.

New in Streaming Platform

Easily Select “Categories” Tags for Videos, Playlists and Ad Tags

When it comes to managing your video metadata, it’s important to be able to efficiently apply category distinctions so that you can quickly identify videos and build dynamic playlists around certain themes. But with a large number of Categories to choose from, this task can be time consuming to say the least. 

This feature enhancement to the usability of the Categories label makes it easier for Zype customers to identify categories and assign them to videos, playlists and ad tags. Now customers can search for categories directly within the “Edit Video”, “Playlist” and "Ad Tags" pages, or pin categories to appear at the top of the “Category” selection module across all videos, playlists, and ad tags in a property.

Now when you search "Categories" in Admin, they will auto-populate

Easily "pin" categories to the selection window

For more information on selecting “Categories” tags and pinning them, please visit the Help Center article here on “Creating and Editing Categories”.

Inclusion of "Last Changed By" Property in API for Change Control Logging

Developers using Zype’s streaming platform can now receive updates via API responses and Webhook payloads detailing when the last changes were made manually in their Zype dashboard to any kind of object - such as a video file or category, a specific playlist - that was last adjusted by a user. In addition to knowing what object was changed, they’ll also be able to see who the change was made by via the users’ ID and email address. 

This feature will help Streaming Platform users track manual changes that are made to objects in the system by users who have logged into the Zype dashboard. This new feature is especially beneficial for Enterprise-grade customers of Zype who want to have a record of all changes that are made by users of their content management system and store this information in their own database. 

This “Last Change By” feature only works for manually conducted changes, and will not reflect those changes that use an API-connection to make adjustments to objects in Zype Admin.

Recent Updates in Apps Creator

Subtitles & Captions Management 

Now Apps Creator customers can enhance the accessibility of their applications with the ability to upload and manage subtitles and captions from the Zype CMS with automatic syncing, or directly from the Apps Creator interface. This new update allows Apps Creator customers to add and remove subtitle and caption configurations based on the content of the Zype CMS and MRSS feeds. If captions are already configured in the Zype CMS, they will be imported into Apps Creator automatically. Apps Creator customers can also upload subtitle and caption files directly in the Apps Creator dashboard either Web VTT or SRT formats.  This update also allows for the configuration of region-specific captions and caption support. 

Subtitles dialog box is shown for any Media object by tapping on the "Subtitles" action

Review this Help Center article to learn more about subtitles and captions functionality in Apps Creator. 

Ad Tag Macros on Playback URLs Provide Better Ad Monetization & Experience

Data-driven advertising means you can make more money off of your advertisers and deliver more relevant ads to your viewer. With this latest update, customers on the latest version of Apps Creator can now pass along more data to their ad servers via playback URLs that will result in better ad placements. 

This latest update enables the use of ad tag macros on “Advanced” ad integration playtime URLs so that Apps Creator customers can pass along specific ad tag macros to their upstream Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) providers to enable more targeted ad placement within video streams at playtime. Now Apps Creator customers can enjoy higher ad revenue due to improved ad delivery and render rates and streaming application end-users can now delight in a more relevant ad experience.

Apps Creator now supports Ad tag macros on playback URLs

Apps Creator customers can enable ad tag macros on playback URLs by visiting the “Advanced” ad configuration page in the Apps Creator dashboard.

For a full list of ad tag macros supported and for more on how they can enhance your monetization capabilities, view this Help Center article. 

Identifier for Advertising (IFA) Support 

Apps Creator now supports the IAB’s Identifier for Advertising (IFA) standards that enable a high-quality advertising experience within OTT environments. Customers who are using Apps Creator’s Advanced ad serving configuration can use an Identifier For Advertising (IFA) to add metadata to their ad requests, either via ad tag urls or playback urls, that will help improve ad fill rates and bids. An IFA provides additional data to ad servers that helps improve the ad experience for end-users by allowing ad servers to provide better responses to ad requests, all while protecting an end-users’ privacy settings. Once the IFA is applied in a customers’ OTT app in Apps Creator, the IFA gets passed through to the ad server from which it can be sent to third-party data systems for reach, frequency, attribution and additional analysis.

The ability to send IFAs to ad platforms is available to customers who are on the latest version of Zype Apps Creator and using the Advanced ad serving configuration. Apps Creator customers can enable IFA ad tag macros by visiting the “Advanced” ad configuration page in the Apps Creator dashboard. 

Authorized Digital Sellers Support (Ads.txt & Apps-Ads.txt)