Preparing talks for bulk-uploading

If you have many talks to upload, Dharmaseed can upload the talks for you. For every talk to be uploaded, we ask that you provide:

1. An mp3 audio file of the recording

We prefer 64kbps to 96kbps mono .mp3 files, but can handle other bit-rates and stereo recordings if necessary. In general, we prefer to use the highest quality recordings you have available (we will downsample them if necessary). If all you have is .wav files, we can accept them as well.

File names can be arbitrary, they will be renamed to a standardized template by our system. MP3 tags are also not necessary, they will be added by our system based on the metadata (below).

2. The metadata for each talk in a CSV (comma-separated values) file

In order to enter the talk into our database, we will need a CSV file for each batch of talks with the following pieces of information ("fields") as column headers.

We can email you a sample CSV file to get started. Otherwise, here are the columns that should be included:

• AudioFile (filename)

• Date (YYYY-MM-DD)

• Time (HH:MM) (if blank this defaults to 19:00)

• TeacherNames (can be multiple, separated by a comma, first is primary)

• Title

• Description (optional)

• Venue

• retreat_id (create or lookup the retreat via the Retreat Admin page, and then use that ID here, if blank this defaults to not being in a retreat)

• language_id (contact us for a list, if blank this defaults to 1, English)

• Publishability (public or retreatants-only, if blank this defaults to public)

3. The metadata for each retreat

If you'd like us to create the retreats for you, we will need the following information for each retreat:

• Title

• Description (if any)

• Venue

• Start Date (YYYY-MM-DD)

• End Date (YYYY-MM-DD)

Notes

• You may provide titles and descriptions in other languages. In this case, please ensure that CSV file is in Unicode UTF-8 format in order to preserve special accent characters.

• Extra spaces and lines may be used freely without harm.

• Field names are case-insensitive.

• It is easiest for us to work with filenames that have no spaces in them (use, e.g. "_" instead of space). However, if this requires you to do a great deal of manual work, we can change the spaces to "_" for you.

Sending us your files for uploading

1. Via mail

Please place your files on CD or DVD media and contact us at contact@dharmaseed.org for our postal address.

2. Via filesharing

a) Upload to a file-sharing service like WeTransfer, Dropbox, Box, etc, and send us a link

b) Making your files available to us through an FTP server: If you have the capability of placing your finished .mp3 and .csv files on an FTP or HTTP server, we can fetch them directly. In this case please email us the URLs and any account name and password necessary for access.

Thank you for contributing your talks to Dharmaseed.org !