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In this blog post, we will introduce the concept of playlists and how to work with them. A playlist contains all the images and videos that you want to display on a screen. The playlist content loops as long as the playlist is running, but you can have multiple playlists scheduled to play at different times during the day. Keeping your content relevant to your target audience is the key here, and playlists help you do that. + +If, for example, your screens are in a restaurant, you will probably have one playlist running in the morning with the breakfast menu, another playlist will run around lunchtime, and additional playlists in the evening and nighttime. + +If you run a network of screens across multiple sites, you can use shared playlists to show the same content on all screens, even though they belong to different users. Shared playlists can also be used as a collaboration tool allowing multiple users to work together on a single playlist. In a typical multi-site installation, one centrally managed playlist is used in combination with additional playlists for each site. Similarly, in the case of a franchise, a franchisor may use a shared playlist to push out content to all franchisees. + +### Prerequisites + +Before creating your first playlist, log in to Castmill or sign up for a [free trial](https://app.castmill.com). + +### Creating a playlist + +To create a playlist, go to the *Playlists* tab and click *Add Playlist*. + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img2.png", "", 900 %} + +Give your playlist a name and leave *Landscape* layout selected. It is possible to +create more advanced multi-layout playlists but we'll save that for another day. +Now click *New Playlist*. + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img3.png", "", 900 %} + +We now have a new empty playlist. Let's add some content to it! + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img4.png", "", 900 %} + +### Uploading the content + +Content is uploaded and managed in the *Medias* section. Once uploaded, each piece +of content can can be used in multiple playlists. There's no need to worry about +file formats by the way. Pretty much any image or video file format will work since we automatically convert all uploaded files to suitable formats and resolutions. + +To upload your content click *Upload Media* and then *Choose files*. + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img5.png", "", 900 %} + +Now select the files that you want to upload. As you can see multi-select is supported +so you can upload many files at once. + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img7.png", "", 900 %} + +Click *Upload* to upload the selected files + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img8.png", "", 900 %} + +When the upload has finished, press *OK* + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img9.png", "", 900 %} + +The content was successfully uploaded and is now ready to use in your playlists. + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img12.png", "", 900 %} + +### Adding the content to the playlist + +Now go back to the *Playlists* tab where we created our playlist earlier. Select your playlist and drag in your uploaded +content to the *Organize Playlist* section. + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img13.png", "", 900 %} + +{% image "/blog/medias-and-playlists/img14.png", "", 900 %} + +We've now created our first playlist. In subsequent posts we'll walk you through how to use calendars to schedule which playlist is played and when. We'll also dig deeper into the playlist concept and show the different playlist layouts, transitions and the concept of widgets. + +Stay tuned for more... + + +Log in to Castmill or sign up for a [free trial](https://app.castmill.com) to create you first playlist. +