Release 9.1.0 – This is just the beginning of dynamic ad insertion…

Summer is still heating up in the Northern hemisphere, and it’s hot. We here at Red5 Pro have been busy preparing our 9.1.0 product release with a few new features. There’s one in particular that we’re very excited about, and we think you might like it: it’s the dawning of ad insertion. Our Interstitial Media Insertion feature, along with a partner’s API and a little integration, lets you pull in ads and other content right into your video streams. It’s ready for you to build, or contact us to implement it for you. This is a brand new method to deliver dynamic advertising, and a new revenue stream.

How It Works

Interstitial Media Insertion is a media content insertion API that allows a temporary switch between two streams, in which audio and video of a new stream can easily be inserted into an existing stream. This may seem complex, but it’s actually quite simple: you can switch the content of any stream with other content. Content can be a dynamic ad insertion, or it can be just about anything else you want it to be.

Interstitial Lifecycles and Some Caveats To Them

There are three types of interstitial lifecycles, and they can be used together. They are:

1. Stream clock: This ad or PSA begins at a specific time from the stream start, and it lasts for a specified duration. It resumes automatically.
2. Wall clock: This interstitial begins at a specified UTC time, and lasts for a specific duration. It resumes automatically.
3. Indefinite: This ad type begins immediately, and goes until a call is made to resume.

   Multiple dynamic ad insertions can be scheduled back to back. A file can be optionally looped if the insertion duration is longer than the file duration.

   There is one known caveat with an indefinite ad insert: when an indefinite type is added to a queue, it occurs immediately. When there are two indefinites added simultaneously, they will play in ascending order. They’re given number IDs, and lower numbers will be played before the higher ones. Also, indefinite types will be played before the stream and wall clock types of ads.

Ideas for Use

There are so many ways to use this new Interstitial Media Insertion feature beyond the dynamic ad insertion use case. To get your creative juices going, consider these use cases: broadcast sporting events to show scores, or individual player or team info and stats, all while the play-by-play audio continues in the background. Auction houses can give lot and item information, live guest panels can cut away to each guest, who has their own stream, until the host stream resumes. You can replay short ads in broadcasts with the loop feature, as mentioned previously (can you tell we’re excited about this?!). If you or a company you know is ready to build or help us implement pulling in fresh content into video streams, let us know. For more details on this new feature, check out our release notes. Tell us how you want to use dynamic media insertion! Contact us at info@red5.net or schedule a call.

To get the latest release, please log in to your account and download the new builds.

To upgrade your iOS SDK, follow this link.

To upgrade your Android SDK, follow this link.

For test applications, visit our Github page.