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Applies to 

Users with limited experience in using API tools in general, evaluating or working with evaluating Vidispine API / Vidinet

Problem description 

You have a solid understanding of video and metadata workflows, but you need assistance in understanding how to configure and use the Vidispine API in your Vidinet environment.

Summary

This article will explain and demonstrate a basic example configuration how to add Azure Blob drive to the Vidispine API using CURL. You will learn how to target the the Vidispine API with the information necessary to create a new resource using the HTTP method POST.

There are other popular tools to be used based using same described principles such as POST MAN, http get

Of course common languages such as Python, Java and similar can also be used to programmatically configure Vidispine API in the same way.

Pre-requisites and system requirements

• a verified Vidinet installation

• understanding how to use CURL in the terminal window

• Vidinet API user permissions to read and write to the Blob Drive

Table of contents

Background

As you have already noticed that the majority of the configuration and workflow customization methods of Vidispine API do not correspond to a general UI ( user interface ). Although this might be un familiar to some users, the reason for this architecture is actually quite simple. We do not want Vidispine configuration of workflow capabilities to be limited by the capabilities of an UI architecture. Instead, we want to give each user the necessary building blocks and tools sets to architect the optimal solution for each particular workflow requirement.

In general the http methods to be used with the Vidispine API is

• GET - we representation from a resource

• POST - we are creating a new resource

• PUT - we are updating a resource

• DELETE - we are deleting a resource

Our mission

Todays challenge is to update the Vidispine API using a pre defined XML configuration document containing the necessary authorization expected by your Azure Blob Drive as well as the destination of your Azure Blob Drive.

To do so we need to register a storage in Vidispine with a method that has a URI on the form:

azure://:{accessKey}@{accountName}/{containerName}/.

Create a configuration document XML

We start out by creating and example xml document to post to vidispine: storage.xml.

<StorageDocument xmlns="http://xml.vidispine.com/schema/vidispine">
  <type>LOCAL</type>
  <capacity>150000000000</capacity>
  <method>
    <uri>azure://:{accessKey}@{accountName}/{containerName}/</uri>
    <read>true</read>
    <write>true</write>
    <browse>true</browse>
  </method>
<showImportables>true</showImportables>
</StorageDocument>

Use CURL to update and configure Vidispine API

Now, navigate to the same directory of the your configuration xml storage.xml and and continue to update and configure Vidispine API with the storage.xml example configuration.

In below examples we are using CURL to

• authorize using -uadmin:admin

• defining CURL method: -X POST

• calling the Vidispine API http://demo.myvidispine.com/API/storage

• defining type document and name of document: -d@storage.xml

• header of content type: -Hcontent-type:application/xml

Conclusion

By understanding this basic method of configuring the Vidispine API, you can apply the same procedure for other similar configurations. After each POST action you will get a response from Vidispine with an ID. Use this ID to update the same resource in the future using the PUT command.

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