Value-added material (VAM)

Prime Video supports delivery of trailer and bonus content. These are differentiated upon MEC, MMC, and EMA delivery. Categorizing these correctly is essential, because it drives the storefront experiences by accurately placing each VAM in the appropriate spot on the title display page.

• Trailers
  Main trailer, teaser trailer, 30-second spot, title announcement trailer, character trailer, featurette trailer, and other promotional video content.
  
• Bonus
  Behind-the-scenes footage, making-of documentaries, deleted scenes, alternative versions, cast interviews, director’s commentary, featurettes, and other supplementary content. Bonus content can be delivered under three access models:
  
  • FVOD: Available to all customers at no cost
  • SVOD: Unlocked only for customers with an active subscription to the associated channel
  • TVOD (Premium VAM): Unlocked upon purchase or rental of the associated feature or season

VAM content is shown on a title’s display page in two unique placements:

• Trailer button
  

  

• Extras tab
  

  

The Extras tab appears only when:

• More than a single trailer is provided (for example, a teaser and a main trailer are delivered)
• Trailer(s) and bonus content are provided
• Only bonus content is provided

Trailer and bonus content are distinct VAM content types distinguished through MEC and MMC values detailed in the MEC references and MMC references sections below.

For information about VAM order, please see Sequence later in this page.

Localization

Partners are expected to deliver comprehensive localization for all VAM content with localized audio, timed text, and metadata. TVOD bonus content specifically must meet global localization requirements and will be blocked from publishing if not met, matching the enforcement applied to feature content.

To successfully ingest VAM metadata, please ensure that you submit parent-level metadata for a movie or season asset first. If VAM metadata is delivered prior to parent metadata, Prime Video systems will attempt to match them for 20 hours. If matching does not occur in that window, redelivery of VAM metadata will be required.

Important: Inputs that link parent and child ID references must match exactly. This includes case sensitivity.

The following table lists VAM-relevant fields in MEC title metadata. These requirements are in addition to the MEC requirements found in the MEC asset manifest.

If a VAM title has been assigned a rating supported by Prime Video, it must be included in the metadata. If the title hasn’t been assigned a rating, an Amazon Maturity Rating (AMR) with the best value estimation is recommended.

When multiple VAM titles are available, their order on the display page is determined based on the SequenceInfo number provided in the metadata (MEC)

Order priority is determined by the highest sequence number. For example, if 5 VAM titles are delivered, the title with SequenceInfo 5 will be displayed first, SequenceInfo 4 will be displayed second, and so on. Similarly, the trailer with the highest sequence number is used for the Watch Trailer Button.

If no valid sequencing exists (for example, all VAM is delivered with a SequenceInfo value of 0), order is prioritized based on the latest start date of the VAM avail. If no distinction between sequence or avail start date is provided, trailers will be selected at random. Prime Video reserves the right to re-order VAM content to provide the best customer experience.

VAM content MMC delivery is nearly identical to episode or movie delivery, differing only in the Experiences section values. Be sure to correctly identify the SubType in your VAM MMC delivery, as shown in the following examples.

Trailers:
<manifest:Type>Main</manifest:Type>
<manifest:SubType>Trailer</manifest:SubType>

Bonus:
<manifest:Type>Main</manifest:Type>
<manifest:SubType>Bonus</manifest:SubType>

Warning: Failure to provide this information will lead to a playback error on the detail page.

These requirements are in addition to the MMC requirements found in the MMC asset manifest.

Avail delivery is required to publish VAM content for all business lines avails that are submitted. VAM avails can be delivered along with your movie avails or separately on a dedicated VAM tab. TV series VAM must be delivered using the movie avail template. Please reference the samples available on this page for more information.

• Trailers
  All trailers must be submitted as Free Video On Demand (FVOD). This ensures that customers can sample content without being logged in, making a purchase, or subscribing to a channel. Don’t use Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) or Transactional Video On Demand (TVOD) offer types for trailers.
  

• Bonus
  Bonus content must be submitted as FVOD, SVOD, or VOD/EST (TVOD). Use FVOD if the content is intended to be available to all customers. Use SVOD if the content is intended to be available only to customers who have a valid channel subscription. Use VOD or EST with PriceType = bundle-only if the content is intended to be available only to customers who have purchased or rented the associated feature.

  Partners must ensure that bonus content avail start dates/times occur on or after the parent movie start date/time, and that bonus content avail end dates/times occur on or before the parent movie end date/time.

  For VOD/EST bundle-only avails, partners must submit only one quality type (the highest available). Submitting multiple bundle-only avail rows (e.g., both HD and SD) will result in avail delivery errors.
  

The following table lists VAM-relevant fields in EMA avails. Review the main EMA avail page for all other requirements.

Trailers Trailer art requires 16:9 artwork that captures the trailer context—typically a still from the trailer, free of text elements unless part of the overall image (e.g., a sign in the background). The accepted Purpose field value in manifest delivery is “cover”.

Bonus Content Bonus art requires 16:9 artwork capturing the content’s contextual essence, plus 2:3 Poster Art for enhanced mobile viewing. Partners must overlay the title treatment as text on both aspect ratios to ensure customers can identify the playable entity on iOS, Android, and Living Room Devices where title names aren’t displayed. The accepted Purpose field value is “cover”.

If artwork isn’t provided for trailer or bonus content, Prime Video defaults to the movie’s primary artwork. Title treatment specifications are outlined here.

Please visit the Sample File Repository for latest versions of our sample files.