VAST 2.0 mid-roll and overlay implementation

Question

We are implementing into our video player the VAST 2.0 png/jpeg banner overlay and the mid-roll video advertisement.

My question is: From where the time information comes when (during the movie or series episode watching) the mid-roll video should be played or the overlay banner should be displayed. I was expecting the VAST XML has already that information included, but it seems that it should be either player decision or it comes from other source - e.g. it is specified within the movie metadata downloaded from OTT server.

Second question: What is the typical mid-roll video behaviour? Is the advertisement played in specific point in time, which means when user jumps in video (using FF/RW on his remote control) I have to play mid-roll (this can be pretty annoying) or I simply count the time the user watches the video and when it is over defined value the mid-roll video is played.

Answer 1

The link may be helpful: http://openx.openvideoads.org/openx/www/delivery/fc.php?script=bannerTypeHtml:vastInlineBannerTypeHtml:vastInlineHtml&zones=pre-roll:0.0-0%3D50&nz=1&source=&r=R0.05822725687175989&block=1&format=vast&charset=UTF-8

This is a simple VAST xml file. The id of this advertisement is "pre-roll:0.0-0". The test shows that it can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/open-video-ads/ova-for-jw-player-5/22848/a-simple-example

As you can see, the player parses this ad as a pre-roll ad.

So, VAST xml publisher can define what are the: ad type, pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll in ad ID tag.

Maybe, the type can be defined in other tags in VAST xml.

Answer 2

btw, another example: http://static.openvideoads.org/qa/latest/ova.flowplayer/examples/xml-wrapper/example1-01.html http://static.openvideoads.org/tests/vast-wrapper-test.xml

I think you could get information from these links and the links in my above answer