Replacing multiple HLS VOD segments returned from VAST tag

Question

I've a VOD HLS playlist source to use in MediaTailor where I would like to replace 2 segments (segment1.ts, segment2.ts) with creatives returned using a VAST tag.

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:4
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:0
#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:VOD
#EXT-X-CUE-OUT:0
#EXTINF:4.004000,
segment1.ts
#EXT-X-CUE-IN
#EXT-X-CUE-OUT:0
#EXTINF:4.004000,
segment2.ts
#EXT-X-CUE-IN
#EXTINF:1.835167,
segment3.ts
#EXT-X-ENDLIST

I'm passing pod=[avail.index] as an additional parameter to my VAST tag and have setup 2 files (creative1.mp4 and creative2.mp4) in Ad Server that are targeted to values pod=1 and pod=2 respectively

As expected, creative1.mp4 gets stitched (replaces segment1.ts) without any issues. However, creative2.mp4 never gets stitched at all and instead segment2.ts is always played. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Based upon the parameter you are sending, there is no issue there. It would be recommended to verify that the Ad Server is properly configured so that pod=2 is equal to creative2.mp4. If that configuration is correct, then it is possible that creative2.mp4 may have an issue with transcoding through MediaTailor. To check on transcode issues for creative2.mp4, you will want to open CloudWatch and go into the Log Insights and then search the MediaTailor/TranscodeService log for the creative2.mp4 file.