Glossary

SIMS Glossary
Specification Version 1.0

This glossary defines the set of fields which are used in the SIMS schemas, grouped by the relevant scope.

active (string)
This field must be “true” or “false”, indicating whether the item has been set as active. By default only active items will be included in an SCBP search response, unless otherwise defined in the match string.

advisory (string or complex)
This field has two representations: simple and complex. In its simple form it is in the format “us-tvpg:tv-y7-fv” where the first value represents the rating organization name and the second value represents the advisory rating. The simple form can be used in a match string of a search action. A service-specific rating organization may be used only if the name does not conflict with a SIMS-defined rating organization name. The following is a list of the current rating organization names (with description) defined by SIMS and the possible rating values for each:

Scopes: channel, show, volume, episode, movie, artist, album, song, audio_book, category, program

advisory_label (string)
This field is in the format “us-tvpg:d” where the first value represents the rating organization name and the second value represents the advisory label. A service-specific rating organization may be used only if the name does not conflict with a SIMS-defined rating organization name. The following is a list of the current rating organization names (with descriptions) defined by SIMS and the possible rating values for each:
us-tvpg (United States TV Parental Guidelines, www.tvguidelines.org): d, l, s, v
nicam (Dutch Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media): violence, scary, sex, discrimination, substance_abuse, bad_language

advisory_pin (string)
The pin code to access the advisory limit settings for the current account.

ad_map (string)

amount (float)
The currency amount of the item. For example, amount of a purchase is the amount charged which may be different that the listed price.

audio_lang (string)
This must contain one three-letter language code as defined in ISO 639-3.

available (string)
This field represents the time when the content item will become available from the service. The field format is “yyyy-mm-dd-hh:mm.” The time component “hh:mm” is 24hr time. Client assumes local time.

bookmarks (string)

broadcast (string)
This field represents the time when the content item will be broadcast by the service. The field format is “yyyy-mm-dd-hh:mm.” The time component “hh:mm” is 24hr time. Client assumes local time.

category, categories (complex)

channel, channels (complex)

commercial_breaks (string)

content_id (string)

content_type (string)

contributor, contributors (complex)

copyright (string)

created_at (string)
This field must be in the format “yyyy-mm-dd”, which represents the date that the item was added to the service. This typically means the date that the item was created in the database.

currency (string)
This field defines the currency of the pricing for all transactions available for the content item. It must be a 3-letter code defined by ISO 4217.

custom_fields (string)

description (string)
This field is a string no longer than 1000 characters.

download, downloads (complex)

duration (integer)
The duration of the item in seconds. In the case of rentals it is the duration of the rental period.

eid (string)
This field represents the unique content ID provided by an external entity. It can be any string but must be unique across the service.

expires (string)
This field represents the time when the content item will cease to be available from the service. This does not impact the availability of content which has been purchased and may continue to be available via an on-demand personal library. The field format is “yyyy-mm-dd-hh:mm.” The time component “hh:mm” is 24hr time. Client assumes local time.

favorite (string)
This field must be “true” or “false”, indicating whether the item is currently on the user’s favorites list.

format (string)
This field must match one of the service-defined content format names.

id (string)
This is an alphanumeric string which must not contain any punctuation or spaces. All ids for any item type are assumed to be unique within the item type and case-sensitive. In the case of categories, the id format is different. Category ids follow the format rules defined for the category field.

image, images (complex)

import, imports (complex)

last_updated (string)
This field must be in the format “yyyy-mm-dd”, which represents the date that the item was last changed on the service.

links (complex)

lyrics (string)
This field is a body of text containing the entire lyrics of the song. It may contain punctuation and carriage returns. It should not contain any markup such as html.

manifest, manifests (complex)

masked (string)
Indicates that the content listing has been altered for the current user. This is usually in the case where the current user has been limited by parental controls.

max_target_age (string)

min_target_age (string)

content_guid (string)

name (string)
This field is a string no longer than 200 characters.

number (integer)
This is an unsigned integer which represents the serial number of the episode, volume, song or playlist item. In the case of TV episodes, the number should be interpreted as the absolute number across all volumes. In the case of songs, the number should be interpreted as the track number of the song within its album.

paid_at (datetime)
The date and time of payment.

popularity (integer)
This is an integer which indicates the popularity level of the item in the result. The actual value may not have any significance, rather it is the relative value which determines the item’s popularity value relative to other items of the same type. Higher numbers indicate more popularity. This is typically useful as a sort field if the client intends to display a list of popular items.

position (string)
The time position of a bookmark. This field is in the format “hh:mm:ss”, where hours are designated in 24hr time format.

preview, previews (complex)

promotion (integer)
This is an integer which indicates the promotion level of the item in the result. The actual value may not have any significance, rather, it is the relative value which determines the item’s promotional value relative to other items of the same type. Higher numbers indicate more promotion. This is typically useful as a sort field if the client intends to display a list of “featured” or promoted items.

published (string)
This field must be in the format “yyyy-mm-dd”, which can represent the following values: the date of first air of an episode, date of release of an album, or the publishing date of a book edition.

purchased (string)
This field must be “true” or “false”, indicating whether the item was already purchased by the user.

purchased_at (datetime)
The date and time of purchase.

purchase_price (string)
This field is the price to purchase the item. Price format is “0.00:USD”, where the major currency is before the “.” and the minor currency is after. Commas must not be included. The ending three-letter symbol is case-insensitive, and it is defined by ISO 4217.

rating (integer)
This is an integer from 1 to 5, where 5 indicates the highest rating. (ie. five star rating) This field typically represents the average viewer’s rating of the content or content set. The rating is assumed to be for the item type searched. If the service does not support viewer rating of the item type, then the rating should represent the average of all viewer ratings of children within the item type. The service may determine which level of child is appropriate and has associated ratings. For example, a service allows viewers to rate each TV show within a channel, but not the channel itself. In this example, if a client of the service performs a search of TV channels where rating=5, then the client can assume that the rating field represents the average viewer rating of all shows within the channel, not the average rating of the channel itself.

remaining (integer)
The time remaining in the rental period in seconds.

rental_duration (integer)
This field is the duration of the rental period. It is defined in hours from the start of playback.

rental_price (string)
This field is the price to rent the item. Price format is “0.00:USD”, where the major currency is before the “.” and the minor currency is after. Commas must not be included. The ending three-letter symbol is case-insensitive, and it is defined by ISO 4217.

rental_window (integer)
This field is the duration of the window during which the account may start playback of the rented item. It is defined in days from the time of the rental transaction. * indicates that the windows is unlimited. A missing or empty element indicates that the rental duration begins at the time of the rental transaction.

rented (string)
This field must be “true” or “false”, indicating whether the item is currently being rented by the user.

rented_at (datetime)
The date and time of rental.

restricted (string)
Indicates that the current user cannot play the content.

resume (string)
The time position of the resume mark within a content item. This field is in the format “hh:mm:ss”, where hours are designated in 24hr time format.

sku (string)

stream, streams (complex)

subcategory (string)
This is the name of a subcategory within a given category.

subscribed (string)
This field must be “true” or “false”, indicating whether the user is currently subscribed to the item.

subscribed_at (datetime)
The date and time of subscription.

subscription_cycle (string)
This field is the billing cycle of the subscription (how often the subscription price is charged). It is defined as one of the following:
year, quarter, month, week

subscription_price (string)
This field is the price to subscribe to the item. Price format is “0.00:USD”, where the major currency is before the “.” and the minor currency is after. Commas must not be included. The ending three-letter symbol is case-insensitive, and it is defined by ISO 4217.

subscription_term (string)
This field is the commitment term of the subscription. It is defined in units set by subscription_unit.

subscription_unit (string)
This field is the unit used for the subscription commitment term. It is defined as one of the following:
year, quarter, month, week

subtitle, subtitles (complex)

subtitle_lang (string)
This field must contain one three-letter language code as defined in ISO 639-3.

target_gender (string)

transaction_pin (string)
The pin code to allow transactions for the current account.

trickview, trickviews (complex)

type (string)
This field is a case-insensitive string representing the type of show, playlist, playlist_item, podcast, or category.
In the case of channels, the type may be a comma separated list of: shows, movies, music_videos, songs, audio_books.
In the case of shows, the type may be any alphanumeric type id. This value can also include the “_” character.
In the case of playlists, the type may be a comma separated list of: shows, movies, songs, audio_books. In the case of playlist_items, the type must contain only one of those values.
In the case of categories, the type must be one of: tv, movies, music, books, podcasts, radio.

views (integer)
This is an integer which indicates the quantity of user views of the item in the result. This is typically useful as a sort field if the client intends to display a list of popular items based on user views.

web_site (url)
This field is the URL of the official web site for the channel, show, movie, radio_station, artist, book or podcast.

window (integer)
Length of time during which the user may begin playback of a rental, in seconds.