Upload and organize media

Tilecast Studio’s Media library stores images and videos for reuse in Playlists and Layouts. An upload must finish processing and show Ready before you can add it to a presentation.

Website Apps also appear in the library under Websites. See Add website content to create one and check its network and offline limits.

Upload images and videos

Owners, Administrators, Editors, Contributors, and anyone whose custom role includes uploading can upload media.

1. Open Content > Media.
2. Select Upload assets, or drag files into the library.
3. Choose image or video files. The file picker accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF images, plus MP4, MOV, WebM, and MKV video files.
4. Wait for each item to reach Ready. Tilecast checks the file and prepares it for Player playback. Items that are still Uploading, Inspecting, or Processing aren’t available to presentations.

If the browser loses its connection during an upload, select the original file again to resume it. It must have the same name and size as the file used to start that upload. Open the asset details for a failed item and select Retry processing when that action is available.

The default maximum upload size is 10 GiB per file. An administrator can change it with TILECAST_MAX_UPLOAD_BYTES on the server.

Upload into a folder

If an administrator limited your account to certain folders, every upload lands in one of them. Studio uploads into the folder you’re viewing when you can add media there. With one allowed folder, it uses that folder automatically. With several, choose one under Upload to before you upload. If you have no folder yet, Studio says so, and you’ll need an administrator to give you one. An upload never lands outside your folders, even briefly.

If an administrator removes your access to a folder while a file is uploading, the upload stops and the file isn’t added. You can still cancel it.

Know what happens to the uploaded file

Tilecast inspects every Ready asset and chooses a Player-compatible variant. For video, the conservative playback format is MP4 with H.264 video in yuv420p and AAC-LC audio. A video that already matches the configured playback profile can keep its original bytes; otherwise Tilecast remuxes or transcodes it. The default video ceiling is 1920 × 1080 at 60 frames per second. Server administrators can change that ceiling with TILECAST_VIDEO_MAX_WIDTH, TILECAST_VIDEO_MAX_HEIGHT, and TILECAST_VIDEO_MAX_FRAME_RATE.

A MOV, WebM, or MKV file can therefore be accepted even when its original codec is not a safe Player format, as long as the server’s FFmpeg installation can read it and prepare the compatible variant. Do not use the upload container list as a promise that every codec inside those containers plays directly. When you need a predictable source file before upload, export H.264, yuv420p, AAC-LC in MP4.

GIF images stay GIFs for playback. Tilecast doesn’t rewrite their animation timing. If exact motion timing matters across different Player engines, export the animation as a video instead.

Tilecast also doesn’t rotate a JPEG from its EXIF orientation tag into new image pixels. Export portrait or rotated artwork in its final pixel orientation before upload when the direction must be exact on every display.

Uploading the same completed file again creates another Media asset. Tilecast stores a checksum for verification, but it doesn’t merge separate uploads by checksum. Resuming the same interrupted upload session is different: it continues that upload instead of creating a second asset.

Find assets

The toolbar above the library keeps the controls you use most in one row:

• Search media finds assets as you type.
• All, Images, and Videos limit the library to one kind of media.
• The sort button orders the library by Recently updated, Newest, Oldest, or Name.
• The grid and list buttons change how assets are shown.

Select Filters to narrow the library by Status, Folder, Collection, or Tag. Folders, Collections, and Tags are searchable, and you can pick one value for each. Active filters stay visible as chips under the toolbar. Select a chip to remove that filter, or select Clear filters to remove them all. Clearing filters doesn’t change your search, media type, sort, or view.

On a phone, Filters and View options share one row under the search field. View options holds the media type, sort, and grid or list choices.

The same toolbar works in Archive.

Organize the library

Select an asset to edit its name, description, and organization. Each asset belongs to one Folder and can belong to more than one Collection or Tag:

• Use a Folder for a broad location or department. An asset can be in only one Folder.
• Use a Collection to group assets that you reuse together. An asset can be in several Collections.
• Use Tags as labels and filters. A Tag can also drive a Tag-driven Playlist.

Create and manage Folders, Collections, and Tags from the Organize menu. Accounts limited to certain folders or tags don’t see this menu, because it changes the structure the whole library shares. Changing or deleting one of these labels doesn’t delete its assets. Deleting a Folder leaves its assets in the library as Unfiled; deleting a Tag removes that Tag from its assets.

In an asset’s details, set Available from to delay when it can be used. Set Expires at to stop the Player using it at the selected local date and time, including when the Player is offline. An expired item appears in Archive.

Archive or delete an asset

Use Archive to remove an asset from the active library while keeping it available to restore. You can restore archived or expired assets from Archive. Restoring an item whose expiry time has already passed clears that past expiry, so a published Playlist or Layout that still references the asset can use it again after Players receive the updated manifest. You don’t need to republish the presentation only to make that same asset eligible again.

Tilecast blocks archiving an asset that’s used by a Playlist, Layout, or shared configuration; remove those references first.

In Archive, select Delete permanently to remove an asset and its stored media. This can’t be undone, and Tilecast won’t delete an asset that is still in use. If Studio reports a reference, remove it before trying again.

Next steps

• Add Ready assets to a Playlist.
• Arrange images and videos in a Layout.
• Use Tags in a Tag-driven Playlist to select matching media automatically.