20 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE AWS
The ad insertion marker initiates a protocol exchange defined by a standard known as video ad serving template (VAST). This is complemented by the video multiple ad playlist (VMAP), and the video player ad-serving interface definition (VPAID) protocol. These ad serving protocols are all maintained and published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). When an insertion mark is detected in the stream, available client information is sent to the ADS to determine which ad to insert. Parameters used for ad selection could be as basic as the location of the requesting device, determined by its IP address, or could be far more detailed and personalised if the viewer happens to be signed in on a client device or has prior tracked web activity. The ADS responds with the ad information and with tracking beacons for reporting ad impressions. Cloud DVR and Trick Play: audiences expect advanced features from OTT providers, including time-shifted, start-over and catch-up TV. This offers advertisers prolonged content availability and opportunities to refresh targeted advertising so ads remain relevant. An ad for a promotion that ends on a specific day of the month, for example, runs the risk of becoming irrelevant. It is important that video operators have the ability to replace this specific ad when the new month starts, to ensure relevance and to continue generating revenue. Delivery reporting: the business
to the ADS is done upstream of the CDN and delivery to the client. The ADS call is triggered by the same ad insertion markers, but these markers are detected by the server-side video pipeline. SSAI processing creates a single, packaged stream that contains program and advertising content deliverable to clients, with each client seeing a personalised manifest file. This format simplifies the requirements of the player at the target device, which enables lighter- weight apps and reduced demands on web players. This, in turn, means a service can be deployed faster because there is no need to develop and maintain player technology for each and every platform and operating system. Typically for SSAI, it becomes the responsibility of the video service to create the reporting and metrics on delivered advertising. There are some nuances to this in individual implementations, but overall the approach can prove less vulnerable to ad blocking. SSAI WORKFLOW Amazon Web Services provides support for complete ad insertion workflows. For SSAI, AWS Elemental processes content for delivery in a mezzanine format. At this stage, the source video should have the SCTE 35 ad insertion markers added by the source content provider embedded in the feed. If it does not, these insertion markers can be programmatically inserted at this stage by AWS Elemental using an API interface. The compressed mezzanine stream is sent to AWS Elemental MediaLive, which compresses the live video to the adaptive bitrate streams designed to play back on client devices. MediaLive uses ad cue markers to ensure the output streams have manifests that retain the start and end of the potential ad breaks. MediaLive uses the ad cue markers to put an instantaneous decoder refresh (IDR) frame into the encoded output after the ad break is complete, so audiences get a broadcast-
end of digital advertising depends upon counting ‘impressions’, discrete consumer views reported from the client to the player. If there is no way to positively confirm that an advertisement has been played on a specific device, then no money is due from the advertiser to the service provider. In fact, the more detail that can be collected on the viewing profile of a given advert, the more potential value the impression will command. Reporting mechanisms depend on beacons generated in the video playback process that indicate partial or completed viewing of the advert. The triggers for the beacons are part of the data inserted into the stream by the ADS. The beacon process is designed to be transparent to actual video viewing. advertising were built substantially around client player functionality. This is client- side ad insertion (CSAI). Incentives to adopt this approach were the increasing sophistication of client video players, the scalability of the solution and the potential for enhanced interactivity. More recently, video services have shifted their focus to added functionality in server-side subsystems – often cloud- based. The impact of this change on advertising is a new consideration of the merits of server-side ad insertion (SSAI). Unlike the CSAI model, in SSAI the call CSAI TO SSAI Initial implementations of targeted
A SERVICE CAN BE DEPLOYED FASTER BECAUSE THERE IS NO NEED TO DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN PLAYER TECHNOLOGY FOR EACH AND EVERY PLATFORM AND OPERATING SYSTEM
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