Why Metadata Matters for Video Discovery and Streaming

Metadata is one of the most overlooked parts of video streaming, yet it plays a critical role in how content is found, organized, and discovered by audiences.

In this video, Mike breaks down what video metadata actually is, including titles, categories, genres, runtimes, and keywords, and explains why metadata directly impacts searchability for both content teams and viewers. Without proper metadata, video becomes difficult to find, reuse, and distribute across platforms.

Mike also explains why manually adding metadata is time consuming and how a modern Online Video Platform automates metadata production to save time and improve discovery. With automated metadata, video content becomes searchable the moment it is uploaded, making it easier to manage libraries and reach the right audiences.

If you are streaming OTT content or managing video at scale, metadata automation is not optional. It is a requirement for efficient video operations and long-term growth.

**Transcript**

Hey, I'm Mike with today's streaming topic of the day. Today we're going to talk about metadata. First of all, what is metadata? Well, it's all the information about your video. title, category, genre, runtime, and especially keywords. So all of the content with like what keywords are associated with that content. Why is metadata important? Well, it's important mostly because of searchability. So that's searchability for you. If you want to go back and find that content at another time, searchability for audiences. Is your video discoverable? Like if somebody has an interest and three or four keywords are associated with that interest, will your video pop up and be displayed to them and you get extra views? This is really important, but it can be extremely time consuming. Think about every time you upload a video, you have to manually go through it. What keywords? Did I get the keywords right? What genre, category, all of that. You want to spend your time producing content, promoting the content, and just enjoying streaming overall. So that's where an OVP like Lightcast comes in. Our media cloud automates that metadata production. So the minute you upload to the media cloud, the metadata is produced. It's associated with that video, and it lightens the lift by a huge amount. So if you're dealing with an OVP or you're streaming OTT right now, make sure your provider has automated metadata production, or it's at least automating the process. And if not, give us a call at LightCast. We can help you.