InBroadcast - June 2022 - 55

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 12 - Issue 6 | June 2022
55
InMedia
Dynamic Ad Insertion - a technology to DAI for cont'd...
their favourite device, location and
time of day, " he says.
For broadcasters
and
operators, the latest
playout
technology
consideration is the cloud. The major
cloud
service providers, including
AWS Media Services, are now looking
at how DAI can be implemented
virtually, particularly at a time when
many broadcasting and streaming
organisations are looking to move
away from or reduce their premises.
Matthew Driscoll
cloud-based
comments
technologies
Product insertion capability of Amagi's THUNDERSTORM DAI system
While both manifest manipulation
and VAST continue to play important
roles in the integration of ads into
video streams, newer technologies
are now appearing and
being
adopted. Srinivasan KA, co-founder
of Amagi, comments that the main
area of evolution for DAI is in the
Connected TV (CTV) FAST space. " The
CTV ad environment is in its infancy
and every member of the ecosystem
- content
owners, platforms
advertisers - is working to create a
monetization strategy that best suits
their revenue goals, " he says. " The
evolving nature of this ecosystem
makes DAI a work in progress,
particularly
regarding customised
integrations with server-side ad
insertion technologies. "
KA
continues
latest
CTV
that
formats, including Dynamic Brand
Insertions
(DBI), are among the
developments in DAI and
programming, particularly
where contextual
unobtrusive ad
placements - which match ads
to applicable sites in a Display
Network
through keywords
and
subjects - are concerned. " DBI is
also known as native advertising,
embedded advertising or in-content
advertising, " he comments. " It is a
cross-platform, targeted, audiencebased
video advertising format [that
allows] advertising messages to be
streamed into places where realnew
ad
world objects - billboards, bus stops
- are present or inserted into the
video output during post-production.
Graphics Overlays
is another ad
format that enables content owners
to deliver targeted ads across FAST
platforms. "
Matthew Driscoll, Director of
Product Management at Telestream,
observes
that
or
the technology
behind dynamic advertising is now
moving on from vMVPD (virtual
multichannel video distributor) and
ad-supported VoD services to also
accommodate " more advanced
approaches and better alignment
between advertiser and viewer " ,
including advertising-based
VoD
(AVoD). " Recently we saw the major
AVoD brands pushing forward with
fully addressable solutions to gain
the benefit of additional ad revenue, "
he says. " There will always be a
state of evolution when it comes to
monetizing the media experience
and a key component is to have
as much visibility of the workflow
as possible to be sure that ad
insertion is properly filling the ad slot
duration. "
In the coming
years, Driscoll
sees DAI becoming " contextually
sensitive to the user experience "
in an automated way. " Targeted
advertising will continue to focus
not only on the user profile but
also around the other subscriber
personalised metrics and historical
data, such as the type of content they
are watching in what environment,
" play a significant role in DAI " , with
workflows being used to prepare
content and insert ad markers where
needed.
Harmonic's
Rob Gambino goes
further, saying that " DAI was born
in the cloud and every part of it
operates better in the cloud. " He
adds that all his company's preferred
partners
have now moved with
Harmonic in being cloud-native:
" All the reputable names in the ad
tech stack, from ad server all the
way up to demand platforms, live
natively in the cloud. Most channel
originators
their
video workflows
are recognising that
also need
to live in the cloud to be efficient
and effective.
It's both practically
impossible and financially untenable
to support the kind of scaling you
need
and video delivery
for metadata, manifests
for advanced
targeting unless your operation is
cloud-native. "
Srinivasan KA at Amagi agrees,
commenting, " DAI is an entirely
cloud-architected solution. It could
be used as software that is specific to
a particular cloud vendor (like AWS or
GCP) or as cloud-agnostic, deployed
through any cloud service provider,
depending upon the requirements of
the content provider. "
The involvement of the cloud in DAI
that
already
can be seen as inevitable, given, as
Ahmed Swidan of Ateme observes,
cloud-based technologies now play a
" significant role " in most other areas
of video processing and distribution
workflows. " Cloud-based workflows
can be used to prepare content and
insert ad markers where needed, "
he says. " There are also cloudbased
workflows for monitoring to
ensure ads are inserted properly.
When operators are adopting new
technologies or making transitions
to new generations, cloud native
workflows are often the best way to
expand resources while minimising
capital investment. Whether large or
small, operators can make efficient
use of resources and expand as
necessary as they migrate from the
'feeling out' phase, through early
adoption and production scaling. "
Far from being a secondary
technology to the main business of
distributing broadcast programming,
dynamic
ad
insertion is
a
vital
component in the whole process.
Financially and technologically it
is
sure to become ever more crucial
in our multi-channel, multi-device
world.
Telestream's dynamic
ad insertion delivery chain
Srinivasan KA
http://www.inbroadcast.com
InBroadcast - June 2022

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