Setting up Video Creatives

Video ads are handled the same way in the system as any other banner, being set up under the Ad Creative section.

Leave the usual content and backup content url's blank and choose wether this video should be skippable or not in the Misc Settings-section. Set up the video creatives in the Video Creatives main tab (see next section) and assign created creatives to the banner by clicking the "View/Edit Video Creatives" link in the banner setup view. One ASX ad can have multiple video creatives associated with it, for example one preroll, and also a companion ad. It is also possible to have e.g. several prerolls, and leave to the player to choose between them on runtime. Generally, we will accomplish this by assigning several video ads to the same zone instead.

Video Creatives

In this view, video creatives are created and edited. A video creative can be either linear, non-linear or a companion ad. The most common one is the linear creative, which can be used for example preroll ads.

To create a new creative:

1. Give it a name and choose the creative type in the dropdown menu. The type is Linear for pre- and midrolls.
2. Ad parameters is usually left blank, see the IAB VAST documentation 2.0 for more information.
3. Click the add button to add the creative.

After the creative is added, it is time to add media assets to it. One creative can have several media assets, for example different many different bitrates to support users with varying download capacity. Click the view/edit media link to go to the view for this. Different types of creatives have different media types, and so the views will look a little different. We discuss them below.

Linear Video Media

Click the add button to add a new media, or click the ID of an existing media to edit it.

• Media File URL: This is the URL to the media file. To support delivery of the video media via both http and https you can use the macro {protocol} in the media file url. (Click on "Choose file" and select the converted video-file.)

NB! Filenames cannot contain whitespace or funny characters. Go with standard characters (A-Z, 0-9).

• Duration: The duration of the video clip. Note that the format is hh:mm:ss

• Delivery: Progressive is the standard choice, and the only choice available if the media is hosted on the ASX creatives server.

• MIME: The MIME type of the media, essentially the format of the video file.

• Bitrate: The bitrate of the video (higher bitrate = higher quality and larger media files). If not known from the advertiser, the bitrate might be possible to find out by opening the video in a videoplayer such as VideoLAN (VLC) and look at the video properties, or by using MediaInfo.

• Dimension: The width and height of the video

• Scalable: Whether it is acceptable for the video player to scale the video

• Maintain aspect-ratio: If scaled, should the aspect ratio be maintained

• API-Framework: Leave this blank

• Click target URL: Optional landing page if the video is clicked by the user. Leave blank to default to campaign settings.

Skippable

A video ad can be either Skippable or Non-skippable. This is a property that is set at the ad level when creating an ad and cannot be changed once set. If a wrapper is used this property much be respected by all creatives down the chain and therefor must implement the same property. 

Market Settings

Make sure to set the Ad Vendors-property to "Bidtheatre AB" and apply the following Creative Attributes: "CreativeType: VastVideo" and, if and only if the ad is set as skippable,  "InstreamVastVideoType: Skippable Instream Video".