This support guide walks you through the end-to-end process of delivering your short-form or creator content, such as Podcasts and creator shows, to Prime Video using an Media RSS (mRSS) feed. It will cover:
- What mRSS delivery is and why it simplifies your content pipeline
- How to prepare your feed and media files for onboarding
- What your mRSS feed must contain to pass Prime Video validation
- How to configure your S3 bucket if you host your own media files
- What happens at each phase, with target timelines for every step
- Where to find delivery specifications and sample files before you begin
⚠️ Note: If you are a new partner, you may select this delivery method during onboarding. If you are an existing partner, please reach out to your business or operational contact.
How mRSS Delivery Works
With mRSS delivery, you publish a feed and Prime Video does the heavy lifting. Instead of manually uploading files, you maintain an mRSS feed URL. Prime Video polls that feed on a schedule and pulls your content automatically.
- Automated pulling: Prime Video polls your feed and new content without any action from you.
- No manual uploads: You do not push files to Prime Video. You update your feed and Prime Video handles the rest.
⚠️ Note: Your feed URL must use HTTPS. HTTP-only feed URLs are not accepted.
mRSS Onboarding Process
Your onboarding moves through six phases. The table below shows each phase and what it covers:
Phase |
What Happens |
|---|---|
Phase 1 |
Feed configuration (feed URL and auth method confirmed) |
Phase 2 |
Feed preparation (spec-compliant test content ready) |
Phase 3 |
Feed & Content Testing (validation gates and partner review) |
Phase 4 |
Deployment and go-live |
Phase 5 |
Steady-state operations and monitoring |
📌 Tip: Designate a single point of contact for your organization who can respond to feedback within 24 to 48 hours. This keeps your onboarding on schedule.
Getting Started: What You’ll Need
Having these items ready helps every phase move quickly.
Feed and Delivery Details
- Your mRSS feed URL (must be HTTPS-hosted and publicly or securely accessible)
- Your authentication method: SigV4 or NONE
- Your content type: Series
- Your polling frequency preference (default is hourly for podcasts)
If You Host Media Files on Your Own S3 Bucket
- Your AWS S3 bucket IAM role and region
- Your S3 encryption method: SSE-S3, SSE-KMS, or no encryption
Delivery Specifications
Before you build your feed, review the full delivery specifications for video, audio, subtitles, and artwork. Meeting spec from the start means faster ingestion and fewer validation failures.
Reference View the full specifications on our Delivery Specifications page.
- Video formats, resolutions, codecs, and bitrate requirements
- Audio track specifications and language labeling requirements
- Subtitle and closed caption format requirements
- Artwork dimensions, color space, and file format requirements
- Best Practices for all files delivered to Prime Video: File names for each asset you deliver should be unique, but Prime Video can now de-dupe any deliveries for different IDs. If you delivery video.mp4 for multiple files, you can search for it in Slate using the a prefix of {item_guid}_ to find the correct version associated with the title.
📌 Tip: Review these specifications before preparing your first feed submission. Conforming to spec from the start reduces back-and-forth during testing. The requirements for assets have not changed for this delivery metho
Sample Files
Download sample files to see exactly what compliant content looks like before you prepare your own submission.
- Sample mRSS feed XML files with all required fields populated
- Sample artwork files at correct dimensions and aspect ratios
📌 Tip: Review sample files before building your first feed. They show you exactly what Prime Video expects at every level.
Preparing Your mRSS Feed
Your mRSS feed is the engine of your delivery pipeline. Prime Video reads your feed to ingest titles, metadata, media files, and artwork. All required fields must be present and correctly formatted before your feed passes validation.
Required Channel-Level Fields
These fields describe your series or channel. They must appear at the top of your feed inside the <channel> element.
Field |
Format |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
<title> |
Plain text |
Your series or channel name |
<description> |
Plain text |
Description of your series |
<language> |
ISO 639-1 (e.g., en-US) |
Primary audio language of the series |
<pubDate> |
ISO 8601 |
Last feed update time |
<image><url> |
Min 1920x1080, 16:9 ratio |
Series cover art. Required. |
Required Channel-Level Artwork (Season Artwork)
Your feed must include a <media:group> block at the channel level to deliver season artwork. Each artwork element uses <itunes:seasonNumber> to associate the image with a specific season.
Image Type |
Category Value |
Aspect Ratio |
Minimum Dimensions |
Max File Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cover |
cover |
16:9 |
1920 x 1080 px |
10 MB |
Poster |
poster |
2:3 |
2000 x 3000 px |
10 MB |
Box Art |
box |
4:3 |
1600 x 1200 px |
10 MB |
Hero |
hero |
16:9 (textless) |
1920 x 1080 px |
10 MB |
All four artwork types are required. Include <itunes:seasonNumber> inside each <media:content> element to assign artwork to the correct season.
Required Item-Level Fields
These fields describe each individual episode in your feed. Every <item> element must include all required fields to pass validation.
Field |
Format |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
<guid isPermaLink="false"> |
Alphanumeric, hyphens, and underscores only |
Unique, permanent episode ID. Never change this value once set. |
<title> |
Plain text |
Episode title |
<description> |
Plain text (min 50 characters) |
Episode description. Aim for up to 400 characters for best results. |
<pubDate> |
ISO 8601 |
Episode original release date |
<media:content url> |
HTTPS URL |
Direct link to your video file |
<media:content type> |
MIME type (e.g., video/mp4) |
Identifies the video format |
<media:thumbnail url> |
Min 1920x1080, 16:9, max 10 MB |
Episode thumbnail image |
<media:category> |
Prime Video genre value |
Content genre. Must map to a valid PV genre. Review the mapping between iTunes and Amazon genres. |
<itunes:season> |
Integer |
Season number for the episode |
<itunes:episode> |
Integer |
Episode number. Must be unique within each season. |
Enhanced Channel-Level Fields
These fields improve discoverability and viewer experience. Include them whenever possible
Field |
Format |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
<guid isPermaLink="false"> |
String, permanent and unique |
Your series unique identifier/SKU, will be generated if not provided. Never change this value once set. |
Enhanced Item-Level Fields
These fields improve discoverability and viewer experience. Include them whenever possible.
Field |
Format |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
<media:keywords> |
Comma-separated text (max 15 keywords) |
Discovery keywords to help viewers find your content |
<media:rating scheme="amazon_maturity_rating"> |
Rating code (e.g., NR) |
Maturity rating. Onboarded as part of feed setup. If not provided, Prime Video defaults to NR, which limits appearance in carousels. |
<media:contentlangauge> |
ISO 639-1 (e.g., en) |
Audio language of the episode. Derived from channel if not provided. |
<media:credit> |
String |
Accepted roles: Director, Producer, Actor, Writer, or Creator. Allows users to search for the content based on cast. |
<dcterms:valid> |
ISO 8601 start/end |
Availability window (e.g., 2026-02-01T09:00:00Z/2027-02-01T09:00:00Z). If omitted, content goes live once encoded and publishing requirements are met. |
<media:subTitle> |
Attributes: type, lang, href |
Subtitles or captions file. Specify format (e.g., text/vtt), language, and file URL. |
<atom:updated> |
ISO 8601 |
Timestamp of the last update to this item. To be included if updates are made to older items in the feed. |
Quick Tips: Feed Metadata
- Your series <guid> is just as permanent as your episode <guid>. Never change either once published.
- Episode descriptions must be at least 50 characters. Short descriptions fail validation.
- While not required, we recommend at least <media:credit> per episode to improve discoverability. Accepted roles: Director, Producer, Actor, Writer, Creator.
- Genre values must map to Prime Video genres. Please review the mapping between iTunes and Amazon genres.
- All artwork (channel and item level) has a 10 MB maximum file size.
- Season artwork uses <itunes:seasonNumber> inside the <media:group> block to target the correct season.
- Territory restrictions use space-separated country codes (e.g., US CA GB).
Default Behaviors
If you omit certain fields, Prime Video applies these defaults automatically.
- No season number: Your content defaults to Season 1.
- No end date: Your content remains available indefinitely (through the year 3333).
- No territory restriction: Your content is available in all Prime Video territories.
- No polling frequency specified: Podcasts poll hourly by default.
Supported Authentication Methods
- SigV4 (AWS Signature Version 4)
- Basic Auth
If You Host Files on Your Own S3 Bucket
If your media files live in your own AWS S3 bucket, you need to grant Prime Video permission to pull those files. This section applies only if you use IAM role-based S3 access. If you provide direct HTTPS URLs in your feed, skip this section.
Grant Access to the Prime Video IAM Role
Prime Video uses a dedicated IAM role to download media files from your bucket. You must add this role ARN to your S3 bucket policy.
Prime Video IAM Role ARN
arn:aws:iam::584788036134:role/PVPartnerContentFeedConsumerServiceS3DownloadRole-prod
Required Bucket Policy Permissions
Your bucket policy must allow the following actions for the Prime Video IAM role ARN listed above.
- s3:GetObject - allows Prime Video to download your media files
- s3:ListBucket - allows Prime Video to list the objects in your bucket
Encryption Options
Tell Prime Video which encryption method you use so the correct access is configured.
Encryption Method |
What You Need to Do |
|---|---|
SSE-S3 (S3-managed keys) |
No additional configuration needed. Grant the bucket policy permissions above and you are ready. |
SSE-KMS (KMS-managed keys) |
Grant the IAM role permission to use your KMS key in addition to the bucket policy permissions above. |
No encryption |
Grant the bucket policy permissions above. No additional steps are required. |
⚠️ Important: Confirm your bucket policy is updated before your feed configuration phase begins. Prime Video cannot poll your files until this step is complete.
Testing Your Feed
Once your feed configuration is complete, you publish test content to your mRSS feed. Prime Video runs automated validation checks and returns instant feedback on any issues.
What Validation Checks
- Feed accessibility via HTTPS retrieval
- Correct transformation into Prime Video’s standardized format
- All required channel-level and item-level fields are present and valid
- Video file accessibility and thumbnail image quality
- Podcast hierarchy structure (Channel to Season to Episode)
- Territory restrictions applied correctly
How to Review Results
Check your validation results in the Slate Deliveries tab using your Account ID. Errors appear with specific details so you know exactly what to fix.
📌 Good news: You have unlimited retries during testing. Fix the issue, re-publish your feed, and the validator runs again automatically. Keep iterating until your feed passes all gates.
Testing Success Criteria
- Your mRSS feed passes all validation gates
- Your content is correctly ingested and visible in Slate
- You are notified and ready for your deployment date
Going Live
When your feed passes all validation gates, Prime Video activates your publisher account and your content delivery begins.
- Status moves to ACTIVE: Your publisher account transitions from TESTING to ACTIVE at launch.
- Automated polling begins: Prime Video polls your feed and ingests new episodes as you publish them.
- Content goes live: Your titles become visible in Prime Video search and browse surfaces.
- Ongoing support: Use the Slate Deliveries tab to monitor delivery status.
Quick Tips Checklist
Use this checklist before you submit your feed for the first time. Each item is a common point of failure during validation.
- Your feed URL uses HTTPS. HTTP-only URLs are not accepted.
- Your <guid> for each item is permanent. Never change a guid once it is live.
- Your cover art and thumbnails meet the minimum 1920 x 1080 px resolution at 16:9 ratio.
- Your <itunes:episode> field is present for every episode and unique within each season.
- Your <media:content url> links point to accessible video files (HTTPS required).
- Your authentication method is confirmed and shared with your Prime Video contact.
- If you use your own S3 bucket, your bucket policy allows s3:GetObject and s3:ListBucket for the Prime Video IAM role.
- You have reviewed the full delivery specifications at the link in the section above.
- You have downloaded and compared your files against the sample files.
- Your channel-level language code follows ISO 639-1 format (for example, en-US).
- Your <pubDate> fields follow ISO 8601 format.
- You understand the default behaviors: no season number defaults to Season 1, no territory restriction defaults to all territories.
- Each episode includes at least one <media:credit> with an accepted role: Director, Producer, Actor, Writer, or Creator.
- Your <media:category> value maps to a valid Prime Video genre.
- Your channel-level <media:group> block includes all four artwork types: cover, poster, box, and hero.
- Each <media:content> artwork element includes <itunes:seasonNumber> to assign artwork to the correct season.
