Create and edit playlists

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Brendan O'Driscoll
Who Can Use This Feature?
Self-Service Plans
Free Pro Plus
Business Plans
Essentials Growth Enterprise
On Business plans, users must have the Create videos and playlists permission enabled.

A playlist allows you to create a shareable collection of videos that play in sequence. Playlists are a great way to combine together multiple videos that support each other and help to tell a larger story.

You can manage all actions related to playlists from the video library:

  • Create new playlists
  • Add or remove videos from an existing playlist
  • Re-arrange the order of videos in a playlist

Create a new playlist of videos

  1. Select 2 or more videos from your library (up to a maximum of 50)
    • If you select an existing playlist as one of the items from your library, the Create Playlist button will not appear
  2. Click on the Create Playlist button to combine the videos into a new playlist

Selecting multiple videos from your library to create a new playlist

Add videos to an existing playlist

  1. Select one or more videos from your library, then click on Add to PlaylistSelecting one or more videos from your library to add to an existing playlist
  2. Choose the playlist that you want to add the video(s) to, then click Select to finishSelecting which playlist you want to add additional video to

Remove videos from a playlist

  1. Select the title of a playlist in your library to open the edit page
  2. Open the dropdown menu next to a video in the list
  3. Select RemoveRemoving a video from a playlist

Change the order of videos in a playlist

You can re-arrange the order of a playlist to adjust the sequence in which you want the videos to play.

Note that as you adjust the order of the videos, the playlist's settings may change.

  1. Click on the title of the playlist in your library to open the edit page
  2. Click and drag the videos in the list to change their order

Changing the order of the videos in a playlist

About playlist settings and behavior

A playlist inherits its settings from the videos that belong to the list. As you add, remove, and re-order videos, the behavior of the playlist may change.

Read the sections below to learn more about how playlists acquire different settings from videos.

Thumbnails and Player Design Settings

The thumbnail that a playlists displays on a page is taken from the first video in the list. Similarly, the player colors, controls, and playback settings (like autoplay) are all taken from the first video.

Change the thumbnail or change the design settings of the first video to update the playlist. You can also rearrange the order of the videos in the playlist to affect these settings.

Video Access Settings

Playlists obtain access settings (like passwords) from the videos in the playlist. More than one access setting may apply to the playlist at the same time.

Learn more about how videos with access settings affect playlists.

Scheduled release & expiry

Playlists obtain scheduled release and expiry times from the videos in the list. If 1 or more videos in the playlist have a scheduled release or expiry, the schedule affects the entire playlist.

For example, if the playlist contains a video set to expire on August 3 at 9:00pm EST, the entire playlist will expire at that time.

In cases where a playlist of 1 or more videos scheduled to release or expire, the following behaviour applies:

  • For playlists with videos scheduled to publish later, Vidyard uses the time & date furthest in the future
  • For playlists with videos scheduled to expire, Vidyard uses the time & date closest to the present

In-video Actions (CTAs)

An Action is tied to the video it was assigned to. If a video with an Action is included in a playlist, the Action continues to appear in the video wherever it has been positioned in the list.

For example:

  • Action X is assigned to Video Y
  • Video Y is the second video in a playlist > Action X appears on Video Y
  • Video Y is moved to the third position in the playlist > Action X moved with it

If you've assigned an Action as a default to your videos, the position of the default Action (pre, mid, or post-roll) determines how it gets applied to the playlist.

Position of default Action Behavior
Pre-roll (before playback) The Action appears before the start of the first video in the playlist
Mid-roll (during playback) The Action appears at the chosen time for each video in the playlist
Post-roll (after playback) The Action appears at the end of the last video in the playlist

To see a visual of where Actions appear within a playlist, select a playlist from your library to open the edit page.

Scroll down to the Actions section to see a visual overview of the videos in the playlist and which videos contain Actions. If needed, open the menu (3 dots) next to an Action name and select Edit to change or remove it from the video.

Editing an Action that's applied to a video within a playlist

Frequently asked questions

Why don't I see the option to make a playlist?

When you have multiple videos selected, if you don't see the options Create Playlist or Add to Playlist, check the following:

  • Make sure that you have only videos selected. You cannot add one playlist to another.
  • If using search to find videos, make sure your search location is set to Current Folder. From your library on vidyard.com, you cannot combine videos into a playlist across multiple folders (applies to Vidyard Business accounts).

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