Overview: Platform APIs

The Brightcove platform APIs allow you to automate interactions with the Brightcove systems and create integration between Brightcove systems and your CMS and other applications.

Introduction

The Brightcove platform APIs are RESTful APIs that allow you to get and send data to various parts of the Brightcove platform. Some examples of use include:

  • Ingesting videos into Video Cloud
  • Managing videos on Video Cloud
  • Integrating the Brightcove platform with a CMS or other system
  • Creating custom analytics reports for a Video Cloud account
  • Creating and managing Brightcove players
  • Creating Brightcove Live jobs for live streaming
  • Creating transcoding jobs for videos in Zencoder

RESTful APIs

If you are not familiar with RESTful APIs, they have some common characteristics:

  • Requests are made by sending an HTTP request, using different methods such as GET, POST, PATCH, and DELETE, depending on the kind of operation performed.
  • The response is usually in the form of a JSON string, which any programming language can parse into native data types.

The beauty of REST is that RESTful APIs are not dependent on any particular programming language. As long as you can make HTTP requests and parse JSON responses, the API does not care what language you are using.

CORS

One thing you do need to be aware of is that most of the Brightcove APIs are not CORS enabled. You can read the linked document for a full explanation, but the upshot is that API requests in almost all cases cannot be made from a web client (a web app, for instance).

It is still possible to use web interfaces with the APIs by routing the API requests through a server-side proxy, as we do in many of the sample apps on this site, and explain in Using the REST APIs.

You can make requests from your own internet-connected computer using tools like cURL, Postman, or Insomnia

Authentication

Authentication for most platform APIs is via a temporary OAuth2 access token. A few APIs use a permanent api key or policy key instead. See Authentication for Brightcove APIs for more detail.

Video Cloud APIs

Video Cloud APIs
API Use Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Analytics Obtain analytics data for your Brightcove accounts Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Audience Obtain audience data for your Brightcove accounts Landing Page Overview   Reference
CMS Manage videos and playlists (uncached) Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Cross Device Resume Allows you to read the playhead position for a viewer to let them resume playing from where they left off Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Data Collection Send analytics data to Video Cloud from non-Brightcove players Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Delivery Rules Create custom rules to control how your content is delivered to the viewer Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Delivery System Management and deployment for player related files Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Dynamic Ingest Add, replace, and retranscode videos and assets Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Images Transform images - resize, rotate, etc. Landing Page Overview N/A Images API Reference
Images Token API Reference
In-Page Experiences (REST) Manage your In-Page Experiences Landing Page Overview   Reference
Ingest Profiles Manage ingest profiles for your account Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
OAuth Get client credentials and access tokens for the other RESTful APIs Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Playback Access video and playlist data from clients Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Player Management Create and manage Brightcove Players Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Policy Generate policy keys that are used to access the Playback API Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
SSAI Manage ad configurations for server-side ad integration (VOD) Landing Page Overview   Reference
Social Obtain history and status of sharing to social platforms for your Video Cloud videos Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Social Create feeds for any kind of syndication Landing Page Overview
Feed Syndication API Overview
N/A Configuration API Reference
Feed Syndication API Reference

Brightcove Cloud Playout APIs

Brightcove Player APIs
API Use Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Channel Manager Manage your Cloud Playout channels Landing Page Overview Reference
Cloud Playout CMS Interactions Manage your Cloud Playout playlists and videos Landing Page Overview Reference
EPG Create and retrieve an Electronic Programming Guide for a channel created in Studio Landing Page Overview Reference

Brightcove Playback Restriction APIs

Brightcove Playback Restriction APIs
API Use Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Audit Generate a daily access report for your account's Playback Authorization Service usage Landing Page Overview Reference
Blacklist Manage your JWT tokens which are blacklisted and considered not valid for license requests Landing Page Overview Reference
Devices Enable device limits for video playback Landing Page Overview Reference
Concurrency Service Allow concurrency mid-stream checks without DRM Landing Page Overview Reference
Key Manage your public keys related to JWTs with Brightcove Landing Page Overview Reference
Playback Rights Define and manage Playback Rights Landing Page Overview Reference

Brightcove Player (stand-alone) APIs

Brightcove Player APIs
API Use Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Delivery System Management and deployment for player related files Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
OAuth Get client credentials and access tokens for the other RESTful APIs Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Player Management Create and manage Brightcove Players Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference

Brightcove Live API

Brightcove Live API
API Use Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Live Create and manage live streams Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference

Zencoder API

Zencoder API
API Use Landing Page Overview Quick Start Reference
Zencoder Transcode VOD and live stream assets Landing Page Quick Start Encoding Settings Reference