The Kaltura V2 Player supports monetization using the Universal Studio players, See Monetization - Configuring the Player Advertising Settings in the Universal Studio
The Kaltura V7 Player supports monetization through Studio Player IMA and IMA DAI plugins. To learn more, see
Kaltura player monetization and Interactive Media Ads (IMA) Plugin - WEB.
Overview of Advertising with Kaltura
Kaltura’s monetization features contain a comprehensive set of advertising tools, pay-per–view, subscription models, and built-in reports that let you optimize your strategy based on viewer behavior.
You can target viewers with ads on live videos or VOD, and across multiple devices such as mobile, PC and set-top-box. With support for a wide range of video ad formats (including all major IAB standards), and integrated plugins for video ad networks, such as Google DoubleClick DART, FreeWheel, and others, managing you can optimize your monetization.
The Kaltura Player supports HTML video ads and overlay ads. The Kaltura Player is VAST-compliant, supports custom SWFs, and has plugins for FreeWheel and Doubleclick.
Player Branding
Players can be designed and skinned to match any brand and used for your own brand or for advertisers on your site. See Configure the Player Features.
Connecting with an Ad Server
Integrating your Ad Server with the KMC is a one-time activity performed when you initially set up video advertising. The ad server must be VAST compliant or available as a Kaltura plugin. You may also create a custom swf for the Kaltura Player to support.
After you have selected an ad server and set up an account with that ad server, you integrate the ad server with the KMC by establishing a connection between that ad server and KMC. After the connection is established, all ad requests generated by the Kaltura Dynamic Player are in a format which the ad server expects, allowing seamless communication between the Kaltura Player and the ad server.
The Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) is an industry standard for the XML response from an ad server. Most of the leading Ad Servers and Ad Networks are VAST compliant, and support IAB standard (VAST 1.0 / VAST 2.0 and VAST 3.0).
Popular ad servers include DoubleClick, Dart For Publisher (DFP), Microsoft Atlas, OpenX, ScanScout. To see the full list of servers and networks that comply with VAST, refer to the IAB website:
http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/compliance/679253
In general, ads, tracking, scheduling, and other parameters, are configured on the ad server side. With VAST, other parameters need to be configured through the KMC or Kaltura Player. Ad parameters are configured through the Studio tab in the KMC.
Kaltura Player and Ad Plugins
Kaltura partners can create a custom .swf file to stream ads from their own ad server to the Kaltura Player. The.swf file acts as an ad plugin. The configured key-value pairs must be defined to play the relevant ads.
You must subscribe to an ad server and configure the ads on the ad server side.
Supported Ad Servers
All VAST compliant ad servers are supported. For more information see Kaltura’s Generic Ads Player Plugin for VAST.pdf.
The Kaltura Player supports all VAST compliant ad servers and the following ad plugins:
Ad Terminology
Ad tracking – the ability to define which/if ads play based on specific metadata.
Overlay – an ad that appears as an image (usually with text) over a video, while the video is playing.
Video ad– a banner ad that accompanies the ad that plays over the video player – this can either be in the list area of the playlist or somewhere else on the HTML page.
Ad Tag URL – a URL that is XML that contains all the information about the ad(s) that should be displayed. VAST works with an ad tag URL system. The XML needs to conform to VAST standard to be considered “VAST-compatible” and must contain the proper tags.
The following is an example of a VAST ad tag URL: http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=640x480&iu=/124319096/external/single_ad_samples&ciu_szs=300x250&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&env=vp&output=xml_vast2&unviewed_position_start=1&cust_params=sample_ct%3Dlinear&correlator=
To see the example, insert the following URL into your browser.
Ad Cue Points – time-based points on an entry that can be used to view advertisements on the Kaltura Video Editing Tools Timeline.
Creating Kaltura Video Ads
The following types of ads may be configured:
- VAST Ads
- Other Service Provider Ads - See the Advertisements tab.
Configuring VAST Ads
- Add the VAST tag to an entry
- Configure the Player
To configure VAST Ads on an entry
- Go to the Content tab and click on the Entries tab.
- Click on the entry and select the 'Advertisements' tab.
- Click Manage Advertisements'
- Click the '+' button in the player
- Select 'Video Ad'.
- Select. Add Name and enter the name for your ad.
- Add the ad URL: for example:
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=640x480&iu=/124319096/external/single_ad_samples&ciu_szs=300x250&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&env=vp&output=xml_vast2&unviewed_position_start=1&cust_params=sample_ct%3Dlinear&correlator= - Click 'Add'.
- Click Save'.
If you want to add an additional URL, you will need to change the number in 'correlator=' (in the end of the link)
To configure a player to display an ad
- Go to the Studio tab (near Content tab)
- Click 'Add New Player'
- Enter the player name.
- Go to the Monetization section $.
- Check the 'DoubleClick' checkbox and expand the 'DoubleClick' option.
- Click on the 'Vast Trafficking' tab (towards the bottom of the available Double Click options).
- Check the 'Track cue points' checkbox.
- Click 'Save Player Settings'.
To playback the video with the ads
- Go to the Content tab and select Entries.
- Select Share and Embed from the Actions menu of the entry you set ads for.
- In the 'Select Player' dropdown, choose the player you created to display ads.
- Click Play.
The ads you set at the configured cue points in the editor are played at their sets times.
Troubleshooting
Here are a few helpful steps to configure advertising:
For VAST Ads
Check that you have a working ad tag URL. Be certain that VAST 3.0, 2.0., 1.0 are also supported for the media file content.
- A very helpful site that has working VAST ad tag URLs can be found here: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/digitalvideo/vast/vast_xml_samples .
- Put the ad tag URL in your browser. You should see an XML that clearly shows that it is a VAST XML. Various other criteria will appear in the URL. An important tag to look for is the media file. Take the URL of the media file and make sure it plays properly.
<VAST xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="vast.xsd" version="2.0">
<MediaFiles> <MediaFile id="GDFP" delivery="progressive" width="1280" height="720" type="video/mp4" bitrate="450" scalable="true" maintainAspectRatio="true"> <![CDATA[ http://redirector.gvt1.com/videoplayback/id/a33fc5b2685eb16e/itag/15/source/gfp_video_ads/acao/yes/mime/video%2Fmp4/ip/0.0.0.0/ipbits/0/expire/1528382128/sparams/ip,ipbits,expire,id,itag,source,acao,mime/signature/45B36084A2A8C3202CCC2354F34826EDCF20274F.A7AE831F6E09FFAE6CCC9553DF892F5C50CB9766/key/ck2/file/file.mp4 ]]>
- If the URL is not a VAST XML or if the media file does not play properly, create a working VAST XML with a working media file on your ad server.
- If the VAST ad tag URL looks valid and the media file plays properly, the next step is to go to Fiddler or Inspect Element. (Debugger) The first important thing to look for here is to make sure that the crossdomain is working properly. Here is a working Fiddler response:
- If the Crossdomain request/response is red or has some abnormal result like 404, you will need to enable your domain’s crossdomain to allow Kaltura to access it. Here is Kaltura’s crossdomain.xml, which can be provided as an example of a proper crossdomain.xml : http://www.kaltura.com/crossdomain.xml .
- The next steps are to make sure that the ad is properly being called via Fiddler:
