Minimum Required Metadata for Content Registration
Audience: Developers and Solution Architects
This guide describes the minimum metadata required to successfully create EIDR Content records through the Registry API. It focuses on Registry validation requirements rather than metadata best practices.
Meeting these minimum requirements will allow a record to be created. Production systems should provide additional metadata whenever possible to improve deduplication accuracy and overall metadata quality.
Metadata Requirement Categories
EIDR metadata falls into four categories.
Category | Description |
|---|---|
Required | Must always be supplied. |
Conditionally Required | Required only under specific circumstances. |
Recommended | Not required for validation but strongly recommended to improve matching and searchability. |
Optional | Additional metadata used for specific business needs. |
Minimum Movie Registration
The following XML illustrates the minimum metadata required to register a Movie.
<BaseObjectData>
<StructuralType>Abstraction</StructuralType>
<Mode>AudioVisual</Mode>
<ReferentType>Movie</ReferentType>
<ResourceName lang="en">Title</ResourceName>
<OriginalLanguage mode="Audio">en</OriginalLanguage>
<ReleaseDate>YYYY-MM-DD</ReleaseDate>
<CountryOfOrigin>US</CountryOfOrigin>
<Status>valid</Status>
<ApproximateLength>PT120M</ApproximateLength>
<Administrators>
<Registrant>PartyID</Registrant>
</Administrators>
</BaseObjectData>
Validation Requirements
In addition to the required fields shown above, the Registry enforces several business rules.
Participant Requirement
Every registration must include at least one of the following:
AssociatedOrg (preferred)
Director
Four Actors
These fields are among the Registry's primary identity signals and play an important role during deduplication.
Language Codes
Language values must use valid language codes.
If the language is unknown, use:
und
Resource Name
The Resource Name should represent the original title of the work.
Version-specific names belong on Edit records rather than the primary content record.
Improve Match Accuracy
The following fields are not required for validation but significantly improve the Registry's ability to distinguish similar works.
Alternate IDs (IMDb, ISAN, studio identifiers)
Alternate Resource Names
Director
Actor credits
Additional Associated Organizations
Providing this information reduces manual review and improves long-term metadata quality.
Episodic Content
Series, Seasons, and Episodes share the same core metadata requirements as other Content records while introducing additional required fields.
Series
Additional required metadata:
ReferentType = Series
One of:
EndDate
SeriesClass
NumberRequired
OriginalTitleRequired
Season
Additional required metadata:
ReferentType = Season
Parent Series ID
Release Date
Conditionally required:
SequenceNumber (when season numbering is enforced)
Episode
Additional required metadata:
ReferentType = Episode
Parent Season (or Series when appropriate)
Commonly supplied:
Episode Number
Episode Title
Common Validation Errors
Missing Participant Information
Validation fails if none of the following are provided:
AssociatedOrg
Director
Four Actors
Invalid Language Codes
Language values must use valid language codes.
Use und when the original language is unknown.
Incorrect Resource Names
Use the original release title for the primary Content record.
Version names should be registered as Edit records.
Minimum Does Not Mean Complete
The metadata shown in this article represents the minimum required for Registry validation.
For production systems, EIDR strongly recommends supplying as much metadata as possible. Additional metadata improves deduplication accuracy, searchability, downstream interoperability, and long-term data quality.