OVERVIEW

This site contains the defintion of EMA Avails Metadata.

The Entertainment Merchant’s Association (EMA) in conjuncation with MovieLabs has defined this format for transfering Avails data from Publishers to Retailers. Avails is an industry term for information about the time, location and business rules relating to offering an asset.

Excel Avails and Title List

Excel Spreadsheet

  • EMA Avails, Version 1.9, December 17, 2019 (Excel)
  • Change Log including older versions and full history (HTML)
  • Previous Versions, still in use:
    • EMA Avails, Version 1.8a, August 3, 2021 (Excel)
    • Title List spreadsheet template for SVOD Film and TV, Version 1.7.3a, August 3, 2021 (Excel)
    • Avails spreadsheet template for Film and TV, Version 1.7.2a, August 3, 2021 (Excel)
    • Avails spreadsheet template for Film and TV, Version 1.6e2, January 20, 2016 (Excel)

XML Avails and Title List

Specification

  • EMA Content Availability Metadata (Avails and Title List), TR-META-AVAIL, Version 2.5, December 15, 2019 (PDF)
    • Specification showing changes from version 2.4 (PDF)

Schema

avails' Schema Version 2.6.1 (Referencing Common Metadata and MEC version 2.11).

avails' Schema Version 2.6. (Referencing Common Metadata and MEC version 2.10).

'avails' Schema Version 2.5.2. (Referencing Common Metadata and MEC version 2.9).

'avails' Schema Version 2.5.1 (Adds Licensee--correct in spec, missing in 2.5 schema).

'avails' Schema Version 2.5

Release History

XML Release History (HTML)

Validator and Tool Suite

Tools are provide for validation (Excel and XML) and for translation between Excel and XML.

Information and links to the Validator are here: www.movielabs.com/md/validator.

The Tool Suite, including an online validator are at mddf.movielabs.com.

OfferStatus Guidance and Best Practices

Offer Status is new with Version 2.5. The following draft Best Practice was also published to illlustrate correct usage in the context of common use cases.

  • Offer Status Guidance and Best Practices, v1.0-DRAFT, BP-MDDF-OSTAT, December 14, 2019 (PDF)

White Paper on Identifiers

A Short Guide to Identifiers for the Digital Supply Chain, December 13, 2017

This document is a summary of how ALIDs, ContentID and EIDR are used in the digital supply chain. It explains key characteristics of each identifier, the roles each is intended to serve, and the interconnections between them. It also provides examples of how to construct ALIDs and ContentIDs from other preexisting IDs, such as an internal house ID or EIDR ID, as well as best practices and guidance for a few common use cases.

Libraries and Tools

There are currently two means of encoding EMA Avails; one based on Microsoft Excel format and one base on Extensible Markup Language (XML). While Excel is more human-friendly, XML is more easily processed by computers. Ultimately, when all interfaces are computer-to-computer, XML will be the preferred format, but in the meantime, Excel has broad adoption.

During this transition period, we want to make it as easy as possible to produce and consume both Excel and XML. To do so, we have created a Java library (mddf-lib) to translate between the two formats. This conversion could happen on either the studio side or the retailer side.

MDDF Library and Tool code is available in this GitHub repository: https://github.com/MovieLabs/mddf

Educational Materials

We have created videos that explain concepts.

  • An introduction to Avails can be found here.
  • Background on idenifiers is here.
  • The full class is here.