Getting Started

Purpose

This guide walks through how to deploy the OVA for JW5 plugin.

Contents

1. Minimum Runtime Requirements
2. An End-To-End Overview
3. A Simple Example
4. Ad Types
5. Analytics
6. Embed Methods
7. Javascript API
8. Debugging OVA

Recommended Reading

• Delivering Linear Ads
• Delivering Overlays
• Delivering Companions
• Configuration Guide

Stay Up To Date

The OVA team uses a number of mechanisms to help keep everyone abreast of the latest developments:

• Twitter - follow us @openvideoads
• Forums - Follow and share in the discussions on the OVA Forums
• Developer Site - Join the OVA Developer Site and gain access to the most recent news and release candidates

1. Minimum Runtime Requirements

The OVA for JW5 Plugin requires:

• A 5.x version of JW Player that is 5.6 or higher (the latest version is always recommended)
• A VAST compliant ad server/network to serve video ads

2. Putting an End-to-End Solution Together

The successful deployment of an effective video advertising solution requires an efficient Ad Server that manages the task of initiating, running and reporting on a video advertising campaign while the video player sequences and plays back the video ads identified by the Ad Server.

The following diagram illustrates the end-to-end video advertising solution using OVA for JW5.

To deploy your own solution you will need to run:

• JW Player 5 (5.6 or later)
• The Open Video Ads (OVA) plugin for JW5. This plugin is an Actionscript 3 Flash SWF that is loaded by JW Player at runtime to facilitate the scheduling and playback of video advertising against a set of show streams
• A VAST complaint Ad Tag delivered from a VAST compliant Ad Server. Two options are possible here:
  • An Ad Network running a VAST compliant ad server (e.g. spotXchange, DoubleClick, YuMe, EyeWonder, LiveRail, Telemetry etc.)
  • Your own internal VAST compliant video ad server - for example OASIS, OpenX etc.

Open Video Ads supports any VAST 1.0 or 2.0 compliant ad servers. In addition, a number of enhancements are supported for a range of specific VAST compliant video ad servers. The list of supported ad servers can be found here.

For further information on the VAST standard, please consult the What is VAST guide.

3. A Simple Example

The following example illustrates a linear, non-interactive pre-roll ad stream and supporting companion being delivered by OVA for JW5. A single VAST ad tag is used to obtain the pre-roll and companion creatives.

The VAST ad tag is a static ad tag that appears as follows:

http://openx.openvideoads.org/openx/www/delivery/fc.php?script=bannerTypeHtml:vastInlineBannerTypeHtml:vastInlineHtml&zones=pre-roll:0.0-0%3D50&nz=1&source=&r=R0.05822725687175989&block=1&format=vast&charset=UTF-8

To run the pre-roll and companion provided by this ad tag, JW Player and OVA are setup using the JW Embedder as follows:

For a detailed walkthrough of the various OVA constructs demonstrated by this example, please refer to the Simple Example guide.

4. Ad Types

In the example above, a single linear ad stream is delivered as a pre-roll along with an accompanying companion ad that is displayed next to the player.

OVA is capable of delivering a wide range of VAST compliant ad types including:

• Pre, Mid and Post-Roll Linear Ad Streams
• Pre, Mid and Post-Roll Linear Interactive (VPAID) Ads
• Static Non-Linear Overlay ads such as images, html, text, javascript, iframe and non-VPAID SWF creatives
• Interactive Non-Linear Overlays ads running VPAID
• Static Non-Linear Non-Overlays ads such as images, html, text, javascript, iframe and non-VPAID SWF creatives
• Companion ads that may accompany either the primary linear or non-linear ad units

An illustration of these ad types can be found in the Supported Ad Formats guide.

To understand how to configure OVA to deliver pre, mid and post-roll linear ad types, please review the Delivering Linear Ads guide.

VPAID ads are explored in the Delivering VPAID Ads guide.

To understand how to configure OVA to run overlays, please consult the Delivering Non-Linear Ads guide while the OVA configuration requirements for companion ads are explored in the Supporting Companions guide.

5. Analytics

A key element of the VAST standard is Ad Tracking

OVA fully supports the VAST requirements for tracking performance by firing the specified VAST impression and tracking events during ad playback.

For a detailed account of how OVA supports the tracking of ad performance, please consult the VAST Tracking guide.

In addition to the standard VAST tracking mechanism, OVA also supports the use of Google Analytics to independently collate and report on ad performance metrics. To understand how to configure OVA to support Google Analytics, please review the Using Google Analytics with OVA guide.

6. Embed Methods

While the example presented within this short guide uses the JW Embedder to setup the JW Player and OVA, a number of embed methods can be used. These include:

• The JW Embedder (preferred)
• OBJECT/EMBED tags
• A third party SWF embed library such as SWFObject

The Embedding Options guide explores how to setup OVA using each of these approaches.

7. Javascript API

To help support a wide range of deployment options, OVA supports a Javascript API. To understand how to use this API, please consult the OVA API guide.

8. Debugging OVA

To help setup and monitor OVA performance, OVA is capable of being configured to output a wide range of debug information to the browser's Javascript console.

It is important that you become familiar with how to debug OVA when setting it up. This will help to considerably reduce the amount of time it takes to diagnose configuration and runtime issues.

To learn how to debug OVA, please consult the Debugging OVA guide.