Mid-Roll Ad Insertion

What is Mid-roll?

Mid-roll advertising refers to a video ad that plays in the middle of content, rather than before or after the publisher's video content.

How does the Zype Playout Scheduler allow users to insert mid-roll ad pods?

There are 3 ways in which users can insert mid-roll content via the Zype Playout Scheduler:

1. Timeline push-out operation

2. Timeline overwrite operation

3. Ad timing sync/creation/modification with automatic insertion

Timeline Push-out Operation

The push-out operation can be performed on an existing timeline track item.

When inserting mid-roll content via the push-out operation:

1. The existing track item will be sliced into two new track items. These parts total the same duration with same start time. Your content will be inserted at the slice position - between the two parts.

2. All content remaining on the timeline after the slice position will be pushed out by the duration of your mid-roll content

Example Use Case

1. Add two assets to the timeline

   1. [Track Item A]: 1 hour long, beginning at 10AM and ending at 11AM

   2. [Track Item B]: Beginning at 11AM after Track Item A

      

2. Disable “Snap to timeline”

   1. This must be disabled to allow for the drag of an asset on top of a timeline track item

      

3. Drag an asset that you would like to insert as mid-roll content on top of [Track Item A]. You will be presented with the mid-roll insertion menu and will see a visual placeholder of where your asset will be placed. Note: The inspector panel will also update to reflect the visual placeholder element. You can fine-tune its properties here, such as the start & end time.

   

4. Click the “PUSH OUT” button. This will commit your insertion and update your timeline content.

   
   

   
   In the example above, an insertion is happening at 10:30AM with a 15 minute long asset.
   [Track Item D] replaces [Track Item A]. This is slice part #1 of [Track Item A], beginning at 10AM and ending at 10:30AM.
   [Track Item C] begins at 10:30AM and ends at 10:45AM. This is your mid-roll content that you inserted.
   [Track Item E] Is inserted after [Track Item C]. This represents slice part #2 of [Track Item A].
   [Track Item B] has an updated starting position, 11:15AM, which takes into account the mid-roll insertion duration

Timeline Overwrite Operation

The Overwrite operation can be performed on an existing timeline track item.

When inserting mid-roll content via the overwrite operation:

1. The existing track item will be sliced into two new track items. Your content will be inserted at the slice position, overwriting the content underneath it.

Example Use Case

1. Add an asset to the timeline

   1. [Track Item A]: 1 hour long, beginning at 10AM and ending at 11AM

      

2. Disable “Snap to timeline”

   1. This must be disabled to allow for the drag of an asset on top of a timeline track item

      

       

3. Drag an asset that you would like to insert as mid-roll content on top of [Track Item A]. You will be presented with the mid-roll insertion menu and will see a visual placeholder of where your asset will be placed. Note: The inspector panel will also update to reflect the visual placeholder element. You can fine-tune its properties here, such as the start & end time.
   

    

4. Click the. “OVERWRITE” button. This will commit your insertion and update your timeline.

   
   

   
   In the example above, an insertion is happening at 10:30AM with a 15 minute long asset.
   [Track Item B] replaces [Track Item A], beginning at 10:00AM and ending at 10:30AM.
   [Track Item D] Is inserted at 10:30AM - this is your mid-roll insertion.
   [Track Item C] replaces the remainder of [Track Item A].
   Note: The total duration of track items above is still 1 hour long. With overwrite, you lose content from the original track item - 10:30AM-10:45AM. 15 minutes of content have been replaced with the insertion asset.

Ad timing sync/creation/modification with automatic insertion

Zype Playout Scheduler has the ability to ingest and utilize existing ad timings from the Zype CMS, along with modifying or creating new ad timings directly from scheduler.

To utilize existing ad timings for a video

1. Make sure you have ad timings on a video from the CMS. For more information on how to add ad timings, please refer to this article.

   

    

2. Visit Playout Scheduler, and click the Wrench icon to modify the channel config

   

   Here, you want to Enable the setting for Automatically Insert Mid-Roll Ad Pods, and select a Default Ad Pod Slate then click Save. With auto insertion enabled, if you have a video asset with ad timings and a slate selected, the slate will automatically get inserted on the timeline at each ad timing specified when you drag the asset to the timeline when editing your channel.

   

    

3. Edit your channel in Scheduler. Find your asset in the Assets panel and click on it to inspect it. You will notice an “Ads” tab at the top right of the inspector panel. Click on that to see your ad timings.

   
   

   Note: Pre-roll ad timings (00:00:00) are disregarded in the sync between the Zype CMS ad timings and Playout.

4. If you drag this asset with ad timings to the timeline, you will see that that your selected ad asset is automatically inserted at each of the ad timings.
   
   

    
   

To modify existing ad timings for a video

1. We’ll begin with the assumption that you already have a video with ad timings from the Zype CMS in playout scheduler. (refer to step one of the previous section for more info)

2. If you inspect the asset in Scheduler and view the Ads tab, you’ll see your ad timings

    

    

   

    

   1. There are a few actions you can perform here:

      1. Update an existing ad timing that originates In the Zype CMS
         To update an existing ad timing, either click the Pencil icon or click on the ad timing itself

         
         

          

         Enter in a new value for your existing ad timing and click the checkmark or hit enter

          

         

          

         You will see that your ad timing now shows with a yellow background. This indicates that the timing has been modified from its original value. Note: This only applies to ad timings that originate from the Zype CMS. Updating an ad timing created from the Scheduler tool will not show as yellow.

          

         
         

          

         If you want to revert the ad timing to the original value from the Zype CMS, click the revert button next to the timing.
         
         Note: Once ad timings from the Zype CMS have been loaded in, they are only fetched again if “RESET TO DEFAULT” is clicked. Modifying ad timings in Playout has no effect on ad timings in the Zype CMS.

          

      2. Remove an existing ad timing
         To remove an existing ad timing, either a Zype CMS ad timing or a Scheduler ad timing, simply click the X button to the right of the ad timing. Note: This does not remove the ad timing from the Zype CMS - it only affects playout.

         

      3. Add a new ad timing
         To add a new ad timing, simply click the “+NEW AD POD” button and enter in a value then click the checkmark.
         
         

         
         
         

          

      4. Reset to default

         1. Clicking the “RESET TO DEFAULT” button will remove all overrides to Zype CMS ad timings, remove all Scheduler-created ad timings.
            
            Before reset with two modifications:

            

            After reset:

            

             

             

      5. Track Items - (Track items, blocks, and playlists)
         
         Automatic mid-roll insertions in a track item:
         
         
         
         Automatic mid-roll insertions in a block: 
         
         
         
         Automatic mid-roll insertions in a playlist:
         
         

      6. Looping with automatic mid-roll insertions
         
         We can also loop items with automatic mid-roll insertions just like any other track item.