At Zype, Zobjects are near and dear to our hearts for good reason: They’re a game-changer in how you manage and organize your video content. By allowing you to define additional, customizable metadata, Zobjects create new possibilities for engagement and discovery across your platform. If you’ve ever wondered how to organize large volumes of content in a more intuitive and powerful way, Zobjects might be exactly what you need.
What are Zobjects?
At their core, Zobjects are extra layers of metadata that you can create and associate with videos or playlists. Think of them as rows in a database table or a spreadsheet, each containing the fields you’ve specified. For example, if you want to track and display information about actors, directors, or any other custom data, you can define that structure in the Zype CMS and manage it just like you would any other metadata.
Examples of Different Zobject Types
Zobjects are organized using Zobject Types. These are essentially “tables,” defining the structure and fields (such as strings, text, integers, dates, or Boolean values). With Zobject Types, you have the utmost flexibility in determining your metadata fields for Zype managed video. You decide how your metadata should be captured, ensuring your data schema can evolve as your business or creative needs change.
For An In-Depth Look at Zobjects, Watch A Demo From Our Product Webinar
Why Zobjects are helpful for managing your video content
The primary benefit of using Zobjects and creating different Zobject Types to build custom metadata structures is the ease and depth with which they enrich your metadata associated with videos and playlists. Using Zobjects allows you to:
- Enrich Videos: Attach relevant metadata—like cast information, behind-the-scenes production details, or thematic tags—directly to each video.
- Enhance Playlists: Tie metadata to playlists, enabling more robust categorization and making it easier for viewers or internal teams to navigate curated collections.
By offering custom ways to structure and display important metadata information about your content, Zobjects help internal teams stay organized, and support advanced filtering and discoverability that can ultimately enhance the viewer experience.
Real-World Use Case: A Motor Sport Example
Let’s say I’m organizing my video content tied to a recent motor sport event. I might want to create Zobjects in order to associate some of these custom metadata details to each video captured from the event. In this scenario, I might have the need to create different Zobject Types, for example:
- Drivers: Each driver can be associated with custom metadata fields like location, team, racing category, and social media profiles.
- Events: Each race or track location, with dates, times, sponsors, etc.
- Teams: Each team can have an association with a relevant driver, location, car brand, etc.
All these pieces of information can live neatly as Zobjects within the Zobject Types you define, making it seamless to keep your video ecosystem structured and easily accessible. In the Zobject Details page, you can manage the custom database of Custom Attributes associated with that Zobject Type (Eg. Drivers), and choose to associate these to your videos.
Example Zobject Details Page for Zobject Type "drivers"
Let’s say you want to apply that Zobject category on a playlist level and create playlists based on that Zobject metadata. If you want to associate the specific Zobject data to any playlists within the platform, just toggle “Playlists Enabled” on:
Newly Added Capability to Apply Zobjects to "Playlists"
This would be helpful if, for example, I wanted to create a Playlist including all the videos that featured one of my most popular Drivers.
How to Create and Manage Zobject Types
Within the Zype CMS, you can easily create a new Zobject Type (think: “table”) and then define the fields you need. For instance, in reference to the motorsport example above, if you decide mid-season that each driver’s Facebook profile is relevant, you can simply add a new Zobject field as a new Custom Attribute to your “Drivers” Zobject Type of “Facebook_Profile”.
Adding A New Custom Attribute "facebook_profile" as a Zobject
The platform automatically updates your schema, and every record in that table instantly has the new field available that you can edit.
For more information on creating Zobjects, you can view this article in our Help Center.
Entering Your Zobject Data
Adding records to your Zobject Types is straightforward. In the CMS navigation pane, you’ll find a dedicated “Metadata” section, which displays each Zobject Type you’ve created. Select the one you want—like “Drivers”—and you’ll see all Zobjects that have been associated with that particular Zobject Type. From that list of associated Zobjects, you can easily add new entries or edit existing Zobject records.
Example Zobject "Scott Cliburn" for Zobject Type "Drivers"
To edit an existing Zobject record, click on the record to expand the Details page for that Zobject. There you’ll see any custom fields you’ve created (Such as Instagram Profile, Race Type, Facebook Profile etc), or any fields you’ve chosen to automatically associate with each and every Zobject record (Such as Title, Description, Keywords, etc).
Example record for Zobject "Scott Cliburn"
You can also choose to associate Images into your Zobject records (such as a profile picture of the driver):
Ability to Associate an Image with a Zobject
Bi-Directional Association of Zobjects and Content
One of the real strengths of Zobjects is how they connect multiple entities in both directions:
- From the Video or Playlist Side: When you look at a video or playlists’ details page, you can instantly see which Zobjects (driver, event, team, etc.) are associated with it under “Additional Metadata”.
- From the Zobject Side: Navigate to a Zobject record to view all the videos or playlists that relate to it. This feature is especially valuable in scenarios where one piece of metadata applies to multiple videos—or multiple metadata elements apply to a single video.
API Integrations
For those who rely heavily on APIs, Zobjects offer robust integration points. You can create, edit, and manage all Zobject data programmatically. Additionally, when you make a request for a video or playlist through the API, you can include Zobject-related data in the response—so your external systems can handle this extra metadata without missing a beat. To learn how to create Zype Zobjects using the API, please review this help center article.
Leverage the Power of Custom Metadata with Zype
Zype's Zobjects are a powerful tool for taking your video content management to the next level. By defining flexible “database tables,” adding fields that matter most to your business, and linking them to both videos and playlists, you gain a dynamic and organized approach to metadata and more easily organize your content. Whether you’re building a library of films, maintaining a sports league’s data, organizing fitness videos by instructor or class location, managing videos from different religious events, or offering a niche catalog of specialized training videos, Zobjects give you the power to structure and serve up your content quickly and with ease.
If you’d like to learn more about Zype Zobjects, reach out to us for a personalized demo, or explore the Zype documentation to see how Zobjects can fit into your specific workflows. The ability to adapt and grow your metadata structure, along with Zype’s deep API capabilities, ensures that Zobjects won’t just support your current needs—they’ll scale right alongside you into the future.