Creating Titles for Purchase or Rent (Pay Media)

PLEASE NOTE: Pay media will be discontinued on July 31, 2008. Pay media is no longer available for new Brightcove customers whose Brightcove account was created after April 24, 2008. Pay media for all customers will be discontinued permanently on July 31, 2008. For more information, see the Pay Media End of Life FAQ.


Publishers use the Pay Media option during the Title creation process to designate which video titles are available for sale.


To make videos available for sale or rent using the Brightcove Console:

Prepare your source video. Source video for each Title needs to be encoded to Windows Media Video (WMV) format.
Upload the WMV encoded video to the Brightcove Service.
  • If you upload the video BEFORE creating a Title:
    (Assets > Open File Upload) In the File Type dropdown menu, select WMV full-length video, browse to locate the file, then click Upload.


  • If you upload the video DURING Title creation:
    (Titles > Videos > Select File > Open File Upload) Browse to choose a WMV-encoded source video as the WMV full-length video.
Create a Title, specifying it as a Pay Media Title and selecting your choice of a WMV full-length video.

Note: You cannot preview a WMV full-length video from the Brightcove Console. However, you can always preview the video from your computer if you have a WMV9-compatible media player, such as Microsoft Windows Media Player.		 As you create (or edit) the Title:

  • Choose Pay Media from the Economics tab.
    Select whether you want this video to be available for purchase, rental or both:

    Purchase - Enter a price in $US (must be at least $.99).
    Rental - Enter a price in $US. Then, select the rental term, such as 1-Day Rental. (7-Day Rental is the default.)

    When the Receiving Payments screen opens:
    You will be prompted to create a PayPal account. (All sales revenue from consumer downloads of pay media video will be deposited to this account.)


  • Select the Videos tab to specify a WMV full-length video. Click Select File, then either:
    • Select a WMV full-length video that you have previously uploaded as an asset in your Brightcove account.
    • Click Open File Upload and browse to choose a WMV-encoded video as the WMV full-length video.
Create a Lineup of your Pay Media Titles.

Note: Your Lineup can include a combination of Pay Media Titles as well as non-retail Titles.		 The Player template for Pay Media can accommodate a single Lineup or multiple Lineups.
  • At a minimum:
    Create a single Lineup that includes the Title or Titles intended for purchase or rental.
  • If you have many titles for sale or rent:
    Create multiple Lineups.
Create a Player. As you create the Player:
  • Choose the Pay Media Player template from the Template tab.
    This template can accommodate a single lineup or multiple lineups. (View feature comparison of Player templates)

  • [Optional] Add your text brand and logo to the screens that consumers will see when they elect to purchase or rent your video Title. To do so:

    Select the Branding tab, enter a text brand, click on the highlighted area in the sample screen, and then select your logo file (100x80-pixel JPEG).
Publish your Player. You can publish your Player with Pay Media video content in a website, pop-up window, or Flash-based application—as you would any other Brightcove Player.
Consumers select one or more Titles for purchase or rent from a Brightcove Player.

They are then prompted to pay using a credit card before they can download the video content.
  • The Brightcove service hosts the downloadable content (Title) and the Player. It also handles the purchase or rental transaction.

  • All revenue for video downloads is applied to the publisher’s PayPal account
View pay media activity and PayPal payment information from the Brightcove Console. Account reporting for pay media titles is available by clicking the My Account link in the upper right (above the Console tabs).