Displaying interstitial ads
Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2
You can mix advertisements in with other content in your playlist by using interstitial advertisements. The advertisements in the playlist can be from a local server or from an advertising service vendor.
When implementing interstitial advertising, consider the following:
Switch between content streams by using stream switches. Stream switches can correspond with time duration, script commands, or client events.
Use a URL to a specific advertising service vendor in the playlist locations in which you want advertisements to appear. Frequently, the advertising service vendor will provide a link to an advertisement that best matches the user profile.
Use the noSkip attribute to prevent users from skipping the advertisement.
If you are logging data about your publishing points and want to be able to differentiate between the advertisements and the other content, set the value of the role attribute for the advertising content to
Advertisement. You can then search the log file for that value and use only the relevant data.
The following procedure demonstrates how to stream a playlist that contains prerecorded (stored) content and advertising. You can stream advertising content from either a locally-stored file or from a participating advertiser's server. This procedure assumes that you have several prerecorded content files as well as some sort of advertising content available for streaming.
To add an interstitial advertisement to a stream
Use the Add Publishing Point Wizard to create a new on-demand publishing point by doing the following:
In Windows Media Services, in the console tree, expand the server from which you want to stream content.
On the Action menu, click Add Publishing Point (Wizard).
On the welcome page of the Add Publishing Point Wizard, click Next.
On the Publishing Point Name page, type a name for the new publishing point.
On the Content Type page, click Playlist.
On the Publishing Point Type page, click On-demand Publishing Point.
To use the wizard to create a new playlist, do the following:
On the New Playlist page, click the Add Media button. The Add Media Elements dialog box appears.
In Location of content, type the location of the digital media content or click the Browse button to locate the content. Click OK.
Repeat the previous steps as necessary to add all of the content to the playlist.
On the New Playlist page, adjust the sequence of the files in the playlist by clicking a file and then clicking the Move Up or Move Down buttons.
Use the wizard to add advertising content to the playlist by doing the following:
On the New Playlist page, click the Add Advertisement button. The Add Advertisement dialog box appears.
Type the location of the advertising content or click the Browse button to locate the advertisements. Click OK.
Repeat the previous steps as necessary to add all of the advertisements to the playlist.
On the New Playlist page, adjust the sequence of the files in the playlist by clicking a file and then clicking the Move Up or Move Down buttons.
On the Save Playlist File page, type a unique file name and location for your playlist.
Use the wizard to configure the following playback options:
On the Content Playback page, select the appropriate check box.
On the Unicast Logging page, select the check box if you want to log data about your clients.
On the Publishing Point Summary page, verify that the settings for the new publishing point are correct.
On the Completing the Add Publishing Point Wizard page, clear the After this wizard finishes check box, and then click Finish.
Users can now receive the content in the playlist by typing the URL of your publishing point in their players. The URL of a publishing point uses the following syntax: protocol://server/publishing_point (for example, mms://server1/my publishing point).
To see how many advertisements have been served by this publishing point at any time, in the details pane, click the Advertising tab. In the Advertisements served by area, click the Reset button to restart the count at zero.