canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/iva-api.com/iva-api-main

# Iva Api Entertainment Express API

The Entertainment Express API from IVA delivers movie, TV, and video-game metadata for content discovery experiences across streaming services, smart TVs, and second-screen apps. It exposes title records, cast and crew, artwork, trailer references, and editorial content through an Azure API Management gateway at ee.iva-api.com. Authentication uses a subscription key supplied either in the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header or a subscription-Key query parameter.

## For AI agents

Retrieve licensed entertainment metadata - movie and TV titles, cast, artwork, and trailers - for content discovery surfaces.

## Scope

Does not handle video streaming, DRM, or subscription billing - use for entertainment metadata retrieval only.

## Capabilities

- Retrieve licensed movie, TV, and game title metadata for OTT and smart-TV catalogues
- Pull cast, crew, and credits records to power talent pages and people search
- Fetch poster, backdrop, and key-art assets sized for multiple device classes
- Surface editorial reviews, features, and curated collections for landing rails
- Authenticate via the Azure API Management subscription key for production traffic

## Use cases

### OTT Catalogue Enrichment

Streaming platforms enrich an internal title catalogue with editorial copy, artwork, and cast records sourced from IVA. The Entertainment Express API serves this metadata through an Azure API Management gateway, letting front-end teams build rich browse and detail pages without negotiating per-studio metadata feeds.

Example prompt: Pull title, cast, and key art for the next 100 catalogue additions and write the records to the discovery index

### Smart-TV Home Screen

Smart-TV manufacturers build the home screen and detail pages on top of licensed metadata feeds. IVA delivers the artwork rights, editorial copy, and trailer references that a launcher needs to present a polished discovery experience without separately licensing each studio's assets.

Example prompt: Render a home rail of the latest editorial collection using the IVA artwork and copy returned for each title

### Editorial Curation Pipeline

Content teams curate themed collections - 'best heist films', 'new horror releases' - that drive engagement on landing pages. IVA supplies the editorial copy, hero artwork, and title references so curators can publish themed rails without building a bespoke editorial CMS.

Example prompt: Fetch the current editorial collection list and post each rail's titles into the home-page CMS

### AI Agent Watch Recommendation

An AI agent recommending what to watch consults IVA for authoritative title metadata before responding. Through Jentic the agent searches for 'movie metadata lookup', loads the operation schema, and executes against the gateway with the subscription key managed in your Jentic One instance and never exposed to the agent runtime.

Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'entertainment express title lookup' and return enriched metadata for the user's shortlist

## Key resources

- **Titles** — Movies, TV shows, and games with structured metadata
- **People** — Cast, crew, and credits
- **Artwork** — Posters, backdrops, and key art
- **Editorial** — Reviews, features, and curated collections

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the Entertainment Express API by hand means handling its Azure subscription-key header and the API-management host yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import Entertainment Express from the API Directory, store the subscription key once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** Entertainment Express serves entertainment metadata, so scope by operation: allow the agent only the read operations it needs for movie and TV lookups. You pick the allowed set, so it stays within metadata retrieval and cannot reach anything else.
- **Credential handling:** Your Entertainment Express subscription key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected into the request header at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'look up movie metadata' or 'fetch a TV show cast', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **TMDb API** — Community-curated movie and TV metadata, free for non-commercial use
- **OMDb API** — Lightweight IMDb-derived metadata with simple key-based auth
- **TVmaze API** — TV schedule and episode-level data that complements catalogue metadata
- **Watchmode API** — Streaming-availability data across services for any title

## FAQ

### What authentication does the Entertainment Express API use?

The API is fronted by Azure API Management and accepts a subscription key either in the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header or as a subscription-Key query parameter. Through Jentic the key is stored in the credential vault and injected into the request at execution time.

### What kind of content does the IVA API cover?

IVA provides movie, television, and video-game metadata including titles, cast, crew, artwork, trailers, and editorial copy. It is built for OTT, smart-TV, and second-screen content discovery rather than transactional or e-commerce flows.

### What are the rate limits for the IVA Entertainment Express API?

Rate limits are negotiated per subscription tier on the Azure API Management gateway. Public documentation does not list numeric limits; contact IVA for your tier's quota and burst allowance and cache responses at the edge to absorb browse traffic.

### How do I look up a title through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'entertainment express title lookup', load the operation schema, and execute with your title identifier. Jentic appends the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header from the vault, so the agent supplies only the title parameters.

### How does IVA differ from TMDb and OMDb?

IVA is a commercial licensed metadata provider used by OTT platforms and smart-TV manufacturers. TMDb is community-curated and free for non-commercial use; OMDb is a freemium IMDb-derived feed. Choose IVA when you need licensed artwork and editorial copy suitable for production OTT distribution.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Entertainment Express API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which Entertainment Express operations and credentials the agent can use. Since the API only serves entertainment metadata, you can scope the agent to just the read operations it needs, such as movie and TV title lookups, cast and crew records, and artwork retrieval, and leave everything else off. The agent stays within that metadata-retrieval set and cannot call any operation you have not allowed.