Ateme integrates Apple’s recent HLS Interstitials specification into its Server-Side Ad Insertion system, improves the viewing experience while giving service providers more revenue options.
Ateme has integrated the most recent HLS Interstitials specification from Apple into its Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) system. This development of the Ateme NEA software for targeted advertising improves the viewing experience while giving content and service providers more options for revenue streams through wider reach and more effective ad targeting.
Ateme’s NEA development was implemented initially for a content and service provider in Europe, and is one of the first SSAI systems in the market to include support for HLS Interstitials. Using this approach brings certain advantages including a better audience experience due to invisible transitions from content to ads and back to content, despite differences in codec parameters and audio tracks.
As mentioned, it opens a wider choice for service providers with the ability to enhance or restrict player control actions during ad breaks. They also have more flexibility in the ad-insertion process, with the ability to reverse or change inserted ads after making an initial decision. HLS Interstitials are a stronger technical solution, with more resilience to ad-break conditioning and segment boundaries in the HLS manifest.
Vendors typically insert separate interstitial content into their presentations in order to display advertising, branding or other information to viewers. But the interstitial support in HLS makes it easier to create and deliver bumpers, mid-roll ads and so on that are difficult to achieve with techniques such as late binding (making content changes during runtime) to current ad inventory and dynamic scheduling.
"Content and service providers are struggling to find new ways to increase their revenue,” said Ahmed Swidan, Director of Personalized TV at Ateme. “One way to achieve this is to reach more viewers, on more devices, with the best ad-insertion techniques. The latest HLS Interstitials specification from Apple enables a wider reach, while also introducing advanced functionality for ad-break replacement logic and making the system more resilient. We are pleased to be among the first vendors to implement this standard, helping the media industry reach its full monetisation potential."
Ateme maintains an R&D task force that is unusual in the video industry with the goal of improving end-users’ quality of experience, optimising the total cost of ownership of TV/VOD services, as well as generating new revenue streams based on personalisation and ad insertion. www.ateme.com
