Monetizing your content with Azure Media Player

Video Advertisements- Tell me more!

As the playback of online video content increases in popularity, video publishers are looking to monetize their content via instream video advertisements. The growth of online video has been accompanied by a steep rise in the amount of money advertisers are interested in spending on video ads. Content owners can take advantage of this and leverage video advertisement in order to (need a better word for make money from) their media

As of version 2.1.0 (released this week, check out the blog post for more details!), Azure Media Player supports the insertion of linear advertisements for pre-roll (before regular content), mid-roll (during regular content) and post-roll (after regular content) for video on demand. These linear video advertisements are fetched and inserted into your content using the VAST standard.

Check out our demo for NAB!

To learn more about the Interactive Advertisement Bureau and some advertisement standards.

How do I start inserting ads into my stream?

To enable ads, first update your version of Azure Media Player version to 2.1.0 or higher as older versions of AMP do not support ads.
Next, configure and generate your ad tags from a VAST compliant ad server like OpenX or AdButler. You can use that ad tag in your player options so Azure Media Player knows where to request the ad from.

Configuring a pre-roll is as simple as:

ampAds:{
preRoll: {
sourceUri: ‘[VAST_FILE.xml]&;,
options:
{
skipAd:
{
enabled: true,
offset:5
}
}
},

This will insert a pre-roll ad requested from the sourceUri that is skippable after 5 seconds. You can find a more complex sample  with pre- mid- and post-rolls here.

Interested in Live Ad insertion?

If you are a customer interested in leveraging live ad insertion with Azure Media Serviced content and Azure Media Player, keep an eye out for my blog post coming out next week on how to insert video ads into your AMS streams on the fly. You can also contact us at ampinfo@microsoft.com to test out the Live Ad Insertion (Now in Preview!)

Calling all ad servers!

If you are an ad server and are interested in developing a custom plugin that supports ad insertion with AMP, please contact ampinfo@microsoft.com.

Providing feedback

As Azure Media Player continues to grow, evolve, and add additional features/enabling new scenarios, you can request new features, provide ideas or feedback via UserVoice. If you have and specific issues, questions or find any bugs, drop us a line at ampinfo@microsoft.com.

Sign up to stay up-to-date with everything Azure Media Player has to offer.
Quelle: Azure

Now announcing: Azure Media Player v2.0

Since its release at NAB two years ago, Azure media Player has grown significantly in robustness and in richness of features. We have been working hard addressing feedback from our fantastic customers (that’s you!) to enhance and improve a player that everyone can benefit from. For AMP’s 2nd birthday I am incredibly excited to announce our first major release its initial; welcome AMP 2.0!

What’s new in AMP 2.0?

Advertisement support

Azure Media Player version 2.1.0 and higher supports the insertion of pre- mid- and post- roll ads in all your on demand assets. The player inserts ads in accordance to the IAB’s VAST standard and allows you to configure options like ad position and skipabilty. To learn more about video ads with Azure Media Player check out my blog post: Monetizing Your Content With Azure Media Player

A new skin

We released a new skin along with as a counterpart to “AMP-Default” called “AMP-Flush”. You can enable AMP flush by simply changing two point in your code:

1) update the CSS your application loads

from

<link href="//amp.azure.net/libs/amp/2.1.0/skins/amp-default/azuremediaplayer.min.css" rel="stylesheet">

to

<link href="//amp.azure.net/libs/amp/2.1.0/skins/amp-flush/azuremediaplayer.min.css" rel="stylesheet">

2) updating the class in your videotag

from

<video id="azuremediaplayer" class="azuremediaplayer amp-default-skin amp-big-play-centered" tabindex="0"> </video>

to

<video id="azuremediaplayer" class="azuremediaplayer amp-flush-skin amp-big-play-centered" tabindex="0"> </video>

making these changes should result in the following new skin:

A more accessible player

We are always working towards creating a more accessible and user friendly player. The team has been working hard to improve your experience with the player in use cases like:

interfacing with assistive technologies (like JAWS or Narrator)
playback in High Contrast mode
navigating without a mouse (or Tab To Navigate)

New plugins

This release comes with some new plugins you can load from our plugin gallery  as well as new functionality baked into the player like Playback speed (icon in the screencap above). The details for these new features and additional APIs can all be found in our documentation. You can utilize them to customize the player to support the playback scenario you want to achieve. Plugin development is a very community driven operation and if you have any questions about creating plugins, modifying the ones in the gallery, or contributing them to the player, please email me at saraje@microsoft.com

Making the Switch to AMP 2.0

Transitioning to AMP 2.0 is an incredibly simple process. Make sure to update your CDN endpoints to point to 2.1.0 like so:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://amp.azure.net/libs/amp/2.1.0/skins/amp-default/azuremediaplayer.min.css">

<script src="//amp.azure.net/2.1.0/amp/latest/azuremediaplayer.min.js"></script>

 

Providing Feedback

Azure Media Player will continue to grow and evolve, adding additional features and enabling new scenarios. You can request new features, provide ideas or feedback via UserVoice. If you have and specific issues, questions or find any bugs, drop us a line at ampinfo@microsoft.com.

Sign up for the latest news and updates

Sign up to stay up-to-date with everything Azure Media Player has to offer.

Additional resources

Learn more
License
Documentation
Samples
Demo page
Plugin Gallery
UserVoice
Sign up

Quelle: Azure

See what’s next for Azure at Microsoft Ignite

Get all your Azure questions answered by the experts who build it. This year’s schedule is still in progress, but here are some highlights from last year’s conference:

Deliver more features faster with a modern development and test solution

This session shows how to use the infrastructure provided by Microsoft Azure DevTest Labs to quickly build dev and test environments.

Protect your data using Azure&;s encryption capabilities and key management

Cloud security is essential, and this deep dive explores Azure’s built-in encryption and looks at data disposal, key management, and access control.

Build tiered cloud storage in Microsoft Azure

Explore scalable, cost-efficient object storage using Azure’s Blob Storage service.

Register now to join us at Microsoft Ignite to connect with the tech community and discover new innovations.
Quelle: Azure