Currency for How Media Actually Works Today
DDEI Data Feed Specifications, Preferred(Client to Rentrak)
Location The files should be uploaded to Rentrak’s FTP server. FTP login information will be provided separately.
Frequency The files should be transmitted to Rentrak on a weekly basis once all data has been received for the last complete week or at the latest by the Friday following the close of the week.
Dates The files should contain all data for the last complete week (Monday to Sunday) plus the previous 11 consecutive weeks.
Countries Countries are reported in ISO 3166-1 Alphas-3 code format. Rentrak is only expecting either CAN for Canada or USA for the United States of America.
File Format The files should be a text file that is pipe-delimited (|)
Headers The files should contain all headers listed below, in the same format. If an optional field is not able to be populated it should be included and left null.
Filename Use the naming convention below for the filename:
<studio>_<file type either transactions or metadata>_<starting_week_ending_date>_<ending_week_ending_date>_<file_creation_date_time>.txt
For example [client_name]_transactions_20130728_20131013_20131013153030.txt
Transaction File
Field Name
Required
Notes
Country
Y
Country to which the transactions belong. ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 codes
Licensee Name
Y*
Licensee from which the transaction originated (e.g., iTunes, PlayStation, Vudu, etc.)
Distributor Episode/Item ID
Studio or Network-specific SKU / UPC level ID
(should not be asset-level; e.g. SD and HD episode transactions should carry the same Distributor Episode/Item ID)
Week
Week-ending data, e.g., 20111113
Transactions
Number of transactions occurring during week
Retail Revenue
Revenue paid by consumer to licensee
Transaction Type
Transaction type, i.e., iVOD (Rental), EST (Sale)
Resolution
Resolution, i.e., HDX, HD, SD, 3D, 4K, UHD
Currency
Currency of reported Retail Revenue
* ‘Licensee Name’ is only required if Rentrak is performing suppression logic prior to publishing, or returning disaggregated data feeds to Client. If neither is a requirement by Client, Licensee should not be considered a required field in incoming Client transaction files to Rentrak.
Transaction file example USA|iTunes|12345|20150101|9999|9999.99|EST|HD|USD
Metadata File
Distributor Title/Series ID
N
Studio or Network-specific parent ID (e.g., MPM, ISAN, etc.)
Country to which the title belongs. ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 codes
EIDR ID
Title/Series Name
Name of movie or series (if Television)
Episode Name
Name of episode. Required if item is Television and an individual episode purchase
Season No.
Season number. Required if item is Television
Episode No.
Episode number. Required if item is Television and an individual episode purchase
EST Release Date
Release date for the EST release of the title.
iVOD Release Date
Release date for the iVOD release of the title.
Release Source
The type of release for a title, acceptable values are as follows: DTV – Direct to Video THR – Theatrical TV - Television OTH – Other
Rating
Rating of the title (MPAA or TV Rating)
Genre 1
Primary genre of item
Genre 2
Secondary genre of item
US Gross Box Office
Box Office generated by item (if Movie)
Metadata file example
Movie Example 67890|12345|USA|10.5240/5868-409E-7BFB-536A-6067-E|Star Wars: A New Hope||||19770525|20150823|THR|PG|SCIFI||380270577
Television Example
Individual Episode: 09876|54321|USA|10.5240/1BF0-694F-CB54-15B4-8060-L|Daredevil|Pilot| 1|1|20150401||TV|TV-MA|Action|Super hero|
Season Purchase: 45678|09321|CAN|10.5240/467A-1F34-8E35-AB4A-D979-L|Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.|Season 2|2||20150310||TV|TV-13|Action||
Movie and TV Episode/Season Names To ensure titles can easily be ingested into industry reporting both movie and TV episode/season names need to be normalized. For example, “World War Z” and “World War Z Unrated” need to be normalized into “World War Z”. This is due to the fact that industry reporting will not be done at the individual “cut’ of a movie or TV episode but at the rolled up view of that movie or TV episode/season
Television Reporting Guidelines In order for Rentrak to provide an accurate reporting of television purchases, all content owners must report television metadata in the same manner.
Season vs. Episode Purchase When a consumer purchases either a full season or an individual episode, these transactions need slightly different reporting. When a studio cannot self-identify a TV Episode purchase from a TV Season purchase we will use the following rules to determine an Episode purchase from a Season purchase:
Season: In order to identify a season, purchase we require the series name, season # and episode name fields to be populated; the episode name should specify that this is a season purchase, e.g., Mork & Mindy, Season 1. We also require that the episode number field is blank.
Episode: In order to identify an individual episode, purchase we require the series name, season #, episode name and episode # fields to be populated.
Any records not following the format for a series or individual episode will be assumed to be a movie.
Example Records: Individual Episode: 09876|54321|USA|10.5240/1BF0-694F-CB54-15B4-8060-L|Daredevil|Pilot| 1|1|20150401||TV|TV-MA|Action|Super hero|
Season Purchase: 45678|09321|CAN|10.5240/467A-1F34-8E35-AB4A-D979-L|Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.|Season 2|2||20150310||TV|TV-13|Action|||Full Season Purchases – Complete Season or Current Season with no prior individual episode purchases When a consumer purchases a full season that has completed its run or a current season but has not purchased any individual episodes of that season, that 1 transaction should be sent for the season purchase, and no individual episode purchases should be sent for full season purchases.
Full Season Completion Purchases – Current Season with prior episode purchases Full season completions are purchases that occur when a customer buys the full season after first purchasing one or more individual episodes; currently this applies to iTunes ‘Complete My Season’ transactions. The expectation is that returns for each previously purchased episode and a season purchase will be transmitted. The return transactions can be aggregated with the total number of episode transactions for that week
Example Records: USA|iTunes|12345|20111113|1|37|EST|SD|USD USA|iTunes|12345|20111113|-1|-2.99|EST|SD|USD
Movie Reporting Guidelines
We are requesting that all movies be appended with the production year. This is particularly important for movies that have been remade one or more times (e.g., King Kong (1933), King Kong (1976), King Kong (2005)).
Content that should be excluded
Free Content, examples include but are not limited to:
Licensees that should be excluded