November 18, 2011

Avail-TVN Assists With Dynamic VOD Advertising

Avail-TVN launched its Advanced Advertising Insertion and Marking (AAIM) service to help operators with video-on-demand (VOD) advertising. Before AAIM, a service provider had to remove a VOD asset and replace it with another copy of the same program when the C3 window expired. C3 is the industry-standard measure of commercials viewed during a live broadcast and for three days afterward. Loading a new version of the same program with different ads added complexity to the process and made it more difficult for content and service providers to take advantage of the full revenue potential of C3 and dynamic ad insertion.


AAIM was developed to alleviate this challenge. As dynamic ad insertion is deployed across the VOD industry, content owners and their affiliates will be able to monetize content, during both the C3 window and beyond, with the same asset. Avail-TVN will capture the live network feed, QC for the Nielsen watermark, encode the program, and apply the advertising insertion mark into the metadata for future advertising insertion once the C3 window expires - all within a six hour window. (For more, see Canoe Targets ‘Soon’ For Dynamic VOD Advertising).



How it Works

Until now, C3 VOD assets had to be deleted from the server at the end of their window and replaced with a new copy that either had new ads or none at all. This required a second round of editing, processing and distribution of the program.

Avail-TVN’s AAIM service captures the live network feed, performs editing of the tip and tail of the program, encodes the asset into numerous formats – MPEG-2, MPEG-4, SD, HD, and Adaptive Bitrate – while retaining the Nielsen watermark, performs quality control and analysis, and simultaneously applies the advertising insertion marks into the asset.

At the end of the C3 window, known as Day 4 (D4), existing ads can be removed and new ads can be dynamically inserted. In parallel to the marking, Avail-TVN captures, packages and distributes the Placement Opportunity Information (POIS) representing the business rules around the AAIM marks.

Avail-TVN has been testing the AAIM service with both networks and service providers who support the DAI protocols in the SCTE-130 specification and certain proprietary platforms.  The first commercial deployment is expected in the first quarter of 2012.