Media Cloud

Overview

Gracenote Media Cloud provides on-demand delivery of entertainment images to Gracenote customers. Our service is based on a scalable and highly reliable Content Delivery Network (CDN) platform that has served billions of images.

Audience

This document introduces the Gracenote Media Cloud to developers who wish to build rich user interfaces using images hosted by Gracenote.  Media Cloud delivers images to clients receiving image references in various Gracenote video data products.  

We distribute various image categories, including:

• Celebrity Images
• TV Banners
• DVD Box Art
• Movie Posters
• Iconic Images
• Episodic Images
• Programming Service Logos
• Sport Logos - League, Conference and Team
• Program Logos

The image metadata and image reference is provided in your Gracenote data product.

Important Terminology

• Aspect ratio - The proportion of an image’s width to its height is considered the image’s aspect ratio.
• API key - This is the identifier that Gracenote uses to grant clients access to the development server. 
• URI - Uniform Reference Identifier, used to identify the filename and pathname of a given image asset.
• CDN - Content Delivery Network, a distributed, redundant network of file servers that serves online content quickly and reliably.

Media Cloud CDN access

Sample access to Media Cloud is provided with a Mashery API key through a common development domain. The api_key parameter is required for Sample use only and is provided to the client by Gracenote.  If the api_key parameter is not present, the query will return an error message, stating that the action is not authorized.

To access the Sample Plan:

• If you are on sample access and have not yet licensed our data products and Media Cloud CDN, use this URL:  http://developer.tmsimg.com/ 
• If you are a licensed customer, use your production access URL as described below

Production access requires a subdomain.  This is referenced below as <ClientSubdomain> and will be provided by the Gracenote team once the client is ready for production service. The api_key parameter is not used in the Production environment and will be ignored if included.  

To download an image from the Media Cloud CDN use this format:        http://<ClientSubdomain>.tmsimg.com/<image URI>

URIs

Image URIs are provided in your data products – GVD, On, On Connect, On API, etc.

For example in the On product suite, they are referred to as URIs.  Ex.<URI>assets/p8130405_b_v8_ap.jpg</URI>

Transparency Trimming - PNG

Media cloud allows for the removal of extra transparency on png imagery.  This can be accomplished by appending "?trim=true" when downloading the png file

For example, Title Treatment images are pinned to the lower left of the 9:5 image with extra transparency on the top and/or right, based on the shape of the logo.

Triming the extra transparency will result in dynamic and changing aspect ratios across Transparent Title Treatment imagery.

Image Resizing

Media Cloud allows for optional image dimension parameters, w for width, or h for height, which allow on-the-fly image resizing.  Ex. append ?w=

Please note that only ONE of the height and width parameters should be used, in order to allow the service to return an image with its native aspect ratio.  If both height and width are specified, only the width parameter will be used.

You can scale images to larger than the standard sizes, but we do not recommend it because image resolution will suffer. There is a maximum limit for scaling of 4000px for width or height.

Once a resized image has been requested once, it will be cached in our distributed CDN to minimize response time for further requests.

Error Messages

Incorrect File/Pathname or Missing Image:

If an incorrect URI is provided, the client will receive a 404 error page containing a blank 1x1 image.

Missing/unauthorized API Keys:

If the client API key is missing or invalid for development server calls, the development server will respond with the message "Developer Inactive". As stated previously, the API key is not required for production Media Cloud access on a customer’s unique sub-domain.

If the client API key is valid but not authorized for Media Cloud (i.e., Public Plan keys), the development server will respond with the message "Not Authorized".

Image Dimensions 

Gracenote will provide the largest image possible based on availability from sources.  The table below indicates the expected maximum dimensions for each aspect ratio.  

PROGRAM Images

CELEBRITY Images

SPORT Logos

SOURCE Logos

Transparent Title Treatment