RealServer allows you to easily insert ads into on-demand content and live content from a rotated list. This capability can also be extended to allow the easy configuration of a "playlist" of content clips that play sequentially without interruption.
The presentation of content and ads is like television or radio in that the transitions between content and ads are seamless.
Previous versions of RealPlayer paused to re-buffer whenever a new content clip was introduced into the broadcast stream. Users visiting your Web site experienced this re-buffering as a delay at the beginning of each clip.
With the release of RealServer 5.0, you may now:
Ad Insertion is an optional feature of RealServer. Depending on which options you purchased, this feature may not be part of your installation. If you did not purchase this feature and would like to do so, please contact RealNetworks or your reseller.
Ad Insertion features can be used in many ways.
RealServer can insert advertisements before, during, or at the end of an on-demand content clip. Ads played before content clips are called lead ads; ads played after content clips are called end ads; ads inserted into a clip mid-play are called in-line ads. You can specify when you want in-line ads to appear during content clip play. For example, you can insert ads at 10 seconds, 30 seconds and 90 seconds into the content clip. All ads can be used in any fashion: lead, end, or in-line.
The RealServer can insert ads from a rotated list at the beginning of a live event broadcast. The ads will be played prior to the live content broadcast with a seamless transition between the ads and live content.
The RealServer can cycle through a pre-configured list of ad clips. For example, the first time a user plays a content clip configured for lead ads, RealServer inserts the first ad on the ad list at the beginning of the content clip. The next time a user plays the same content clip, the second ad is played before the content clip. This is repeated until all the ads on the list have been played at the beginning of the content clip, when RealServer returns to the first ad on the list and repeats the process.
A list of content clips can be defined for playback. When the user clicks a RealAudio or RealVideo link, a string of pre-configured content clips will be played sequentially with no re-buffering or pausing between clips.
Ad clips can contain Image Maps, just as content clips can contain Image Maps. For more information, see the RealAudio and RealVideo Content Creation Guide.
For more specific ad targeting beyond simple ad insertion and more control of content rotation, RealServer can interface with third party database applications such as ad servers. RealServer is equipped with an open Application Programming Interface (API) for integration with other such ad servers. Detailed information on the Ad Insertion API, as well as SDKs and toolkits, is available at www.real.com.
When a user accesses content that has Ad Insertion, the third party software uses information passed from the RealServer to determine which ad is to be inserted by the RealServer or which content clips to string together.
The RealServer passes information about the user to the ad server, which analyzes this information, selects the most appropriate ad clip, and returns the filename and URL for that ad clip to the RealSystem. The data passed from the RealServer to the third party application includes: