Today, all Server-Side Ad Insertion SSAI systems in the market offer ad transcode functionality to ingest source ads and transcode them into the right format, bitrate and resolution to match the live or VOD content they are being inserted on. For example, if the live channel is HLS, HD resolution @30fps, with 6 Mbps bitrate, then SSAI ads should be transcoded to the same profile to avoid disrupting viewers with different video resolution or frame rate. If the viewer is watching an HD channel, it will be disruptive to suddenly see an SD advertisement. The opposite case is also true. If the channel is SD then all ads inserted in it should be SD resolution, because if the ads are HD then the ad break is over and the stream goes back to SD, and the user will still be disrupted.
The business impact of ad transcoding for SSAI.
The above definition of the main objective of ad transcode for SSAI makes it sound like a technical thing, which is true. It is a technical thing. But it has major impacts on your SSAI business case and revenue. The below items list these business implications in detail:
1. The ad transcoder speed can affect your revenue
In live SSAI channels, ad breaks are supposed to be personalized for thousands, or potentially millions of users simultaneously. This means that when an ad break happens, the SSAI system need to insert personalized ads into each viewers stream individually. The SSAI system expects that the ads it is supposed to insert to all the connected audience are pre-transcoded and saved on an origin location that it knows. But what happens if a new ad hasn’t been transcoded yet? For example, a new ad has just been activated from the ad sales team or programmatically from the SSP / Exchange that your inventory is connected to. In this case, the SSAI system needs to initiate a transcode process for this ad. When the transcode process is finished, the ad can be inserted into individual inserted streams. However, before the ad transcode process is complete, any ad insertion opportunity involving this particular ad will be missed, because the ad is not ready yet. Therefore, the faster your transcoder is, the less revenue you will lose. If we consider a scale of a popular program or football match where millions of viewers are connected to the stream, missing too many insertion opportunities of the connected audience will negatively impact the generated SSAI revenue.
2. Good ad transcoder redundancy makes sure you are always in business
Given the mechanism explained above, what would happen if your ad transcode cluster is down for any reason? The answer is simple, you will miss inserting personalized ads for all connected audience till your transcode cluster is back online. That could mean lots of dollars lost. If your audience is in the US and you are showing a popular program or sports game with 1 Million connected viewers traffic, you will potentially generate between $100,000 to $150,000 from this single program. But if your ad transcode cluster is down for any reason, this revenue will be severely reduced.
3. Scaling up and down your ad transcode system can save significant cloud resources
As most SSAI systems are deployed in the cloud, and in many cases in public clouds, it is important to use the cloud resources effectively to avoid inflating the cloud infrastructure cost of your SSAI deployment. Just like the SSAI system, the ad transcode cluster should scale up and down depending on the connected traffic. The ad transcode cluster in the cloud should be based on microservices with Kubernetes architecture with robust mechanisms for scaling up and down. Having such scaling flexibility will result in significant cloud cost savings at the end of each month.
4. Monitoring key business and performance metrics
The ad transcode cluster and ad workflow manager attached to an SSAI system should give good reporting on key performance Indicators KPI’s such as:
- Number of transcoded ads over a period of time
- Number of successes and failures.
- Reasons of failure and how many times they have happened.
- Source file problems
- Quality of transcoded ads / missing audio issues
Having the ability to monitor the above KPI’s will ensure that SSAI operators have good eyes on the system to make sure all is going well and ensure smooth operation and protection of the revenue dollars generated by their SSAI system.
Diagram: High-level view of how ad workflow management helps in SSAI applications
Good features that your ad transcoder should support.
Despite the above-mentioned critical business impact of ad transcoding and workflow management in SSAI architectures, most vendors in the market today offer very basic ad transcode control functionality. The offered functionality from most vendors is usually limited to setting a transcode profiles template with fixed encode parameters such as format, bitrate, resolution and frame rate. Then after activating the SSAI workflow, the operator will not have any visibility on the performance and reporting of the ad transcode cluster. This can be easily labeled as a “Black Box” approach to ad transcoding in SSAI. In other words, SSAI operators have no capability to understand if their source ads and ad transcode clusters is performing well or not. More importantly, they don’t have the ability to know if they are losing revenue because their ad transcode workflow is not performing well.
In Ateme, we are not convinced that offering just a transcode template settings screen in our SSAI is enough. Indeed customers should be able to configure the bitrate, resolution, frame rate and format of their ad transcode templates, but in addition, customers should also have the ability to control and monitor many other aspects of their ad transcode workflow manager. The following lines describe what we believe are crucial control and monitoring aspects that every SSAI operator should have:
1. Ability to design no-code workflows with a visual editor
Every SSAI operator should have the ability to create fast no-code workflows for their ad transcode processes. For example, a visual editor should be used to design a workflow specifying ads source locations, file quality checks, transcode parameters, format variations, target destinations and many other parameters. The operator should also be able to upgrade and roll back between workflows with version numbers. Additionally, the SSAI system should have the ability to activate specific transcode workflows based on the channel that the requested ad is supposed to be inserted in.
2. Ability to design failover and extensive error handling scenarios
SSAI operators should have the ability to specify what happens in case of errors. For example, if the source file is corrupted then a notification should be sent to the operators e-mail or an external monitoring system. Another example could be in the case when the transcode process fails, then the transcoder should re-try to do it 3 times then stop trying, otherwise the transcoder could be stuck in a re-try loop forever consuming unnecessary resources.
3. Ability to design scale-up and scale-down mechanisms
The SSAI operator should have the ability to manually scale up and down the transcode cluster in particular times of the day, month or year when high traffic is expected. Scaling up and down automatically should also be supported to save cloud resources.
4. Comprehensive dashboard for operational monitoring
A dashboard of the ad workflow manager should cover key business and performance parameters that are of significance to the operator. For example, it is recommended to proactively monitor the number of ads transcoded, number of transcode failures, reasons of failures and their frequency amongst other key performance metrics.
5. Configuration of alarms and notifications
In a Master Control Room MCR environment, alarms setting is crucial to increase the monitoring efficiency of the MCR team. SSAI operators should have the ability to configure alarms to appear on the dashboard, to be sent to emails or mobile phones or to external monitoring systems. Alarms can also be sent to other teams that get involved in the ad preparation process. For example, if an ad is missing audio, an alarm should be sent to the ad sales or creative teams to upload it again with valid audio.
Ateme’s SSAI solution always includes an advanced ad transcode workflow manager.
Ateme’s SSAI solution comes pre-integrated with Ateme’s home grown ad transcoder and workflow manager to facilitate all the objectives and features mentioned in this article. Our objective is to enable our customers to easily and successfully operate their SSAI architectures with the lowest possible number of engineers. Ateme’s ad transcode workflow manager helps to severely reduce the human tasks required for successful operation. The ad transcode workflow manager also ensures that your ad processing is always online to avoid missing any revenue. For more information on Ateme’s SSAI solution and it’s associated ads workflow manager, please get in touch! And if you are heading to Amsterdam for IBC 2024, stop by and see us at Hall 1 Booth D61 or set up a meeting.