This technical blueprint describes how to set up RealServer G2 ad serving, which lets you dynamically add a streaming advertisement to a requested media clip. Offering integration with any HTML-based ad serving system, the RealServer ad serving feature uses SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) to lay out ad content with requested content in RealPlayer. To set up ad serving, you should be familiar with:
Requiring no special programming, RealServer integrates with all major Internet ad providers, including DoubleClick, NetGravity, AdForce, Narrative, and Flycast.
For banner ads, RealPlayer supports JPEGs, as well as GIFs and animated GIFs.
In addition to image ads, RealSystem G2 supports rich media ads in RealVideo, RealAudio, RealFlash, or any other format played by RealPlayer G2. These ads can appear as banners, play before the requested presentation, or play between requested clips.
You can easily include ads with existing SMIL presentations that feature multiple clips played in sequence or parallel.
For a single clip, such as a RealVideo clip not incorporated into a SMIL presentation, RealServer can generate the SMIL file that lays out the clip and the ad in RealPlayer G2.
RealServer can rotate image banner ads at regular intervals to provide, for example, a new ad every 60 seconds.
When a viewer clicks an ad in RealPlayer, the ad's hypertext link URL is thrown to the viewer's browser.
 |
Note |
|---|
| Cookie support not included in this release. |
RealServer requires no special programming to integrate with popular ad serving systems. Ad servers are designed to place ad URLs in requested Web pages. To get an ad from an ad server, RealServer simply requests a Web page integrated with that server. When it receives the returned page, it extracts the ad's file URL and hypertext link URL. RealServer then incorporates these URLs into the SMIL presentation requested by RealPlayer. With this method, any ad server designed for HTML pages can serve ads to the SMIL-based RealPlayer.
 |
Additional Information |
|---|
| See "Ad Target HTML Page" for more on the HTML file where RealServer gets ad URLs. |
RealServer offers several options for ad serving. The simplest is its rotating banner ad feature. With rotating banner ads, RealServer sends RealPlayer a new GIF, animated GIF, or JPEG ad at regular intervals. To use this feature, you simply create a SMIL file that lays out a banner ad region along with the requested clip. The SMIL <img.../> source tag for this ad region then identifies the clip as a rotating banner ad rather than a static image. Options you include with the source tag tell RealServer where to get the ad URLs, how often to rotate ads, the bit rate for ad streaming, and so on.
|
|
Additional Information |
|---|
| See "Rotating Banner Ads" for information on setting up ad banner rotation. |
In addition to rotating banner ads, you can use general ad serving to deliver single banner ads or rich media ads. With general ad serving, you create a SMIL file that includes one or more regions for ads. Instead of ad URLs, the SMIL file contains one or more <RealAdInsert/> tags that RealServer expands into unique ad URLs when RealPlayer requests the file.
|
|
Additional Information |
|---|
| "General Ad Serving" explains how to set up general ad serving. |
Although general ad serving can deliver standard banner ads, its power lies in its ability to deliver rich media ads in formats such as RealAudio, RealVideo, and RealFlash. The delivery mechanism for rich media ad URLs is the same as for image ad URLs: the ad server places URLs in an HTML page requested by RealServer. The only difference is that these ad URLs are for RTSP-streamed clips on a RealServer host, rather than for HTTP-downloaded image files on an ad server.
|
|
Additional Information |
|---|
| See "Rich Media Ads" for more information. |
General ad serving uses SMIL to lay out ads along with requested clips in RealPlayer. With the SMIL generation feature, you can automatically create SMIL files for requests to stand-alone clips. This lets you serve ads without having to write SMIL files by hand. This feature is useful if you have a large collection of existing clips for which you want to include ads.
|
|
Additional Information |
|---|
| See "Automatic SMIL Generation" for more information. |
The following table lists the RealServer G2 plug-ins used with ad serving. These components are either included with the standard RealSystem G2 software or installed with the ad serving package in RealServer's plugins directory. For more on plug-ins, see RealServer Administration Guide.
This plug-in receives SMIL files with <RealAdInsert/> tags and requests a target HTML page to get an ad URL. It parses the page and places the ad URL in the SMIL file. It then passes the SMIL file to RealServer for delivery to RealPlayer.
This standard RealServer plug-in manages the server's HTTP connections. It allows the ad insertion plug-in to communicate with a Web server to request a target HTML page that contains an ad URL.
This plug-in creates the RealServer streams for rotating banner ads. It handles requests for RealPix Ad files, which use the file extension .rpa.
This is a general purpose plug-in used to generate rotating banner ads. Within a SMIL presentation, requests for rotating banner ads include URLs with this plug-in's mount point.
For a requested media clip, this plug-in generates a SMIL file that includes a <RealAdInsert/> tag. It creates all the SMIL mark-up needed to lay out and time the clip and ad combination. RealServer passes a request to this plug-in when the request includes the plug-in's designated mount point.
Used with several RealSystem features, the RealServer tag handler plug-in either expands tag placeholders in server-side files, or passes the files to other plug-ins for handling. For ad serving, it parses the generated SMIL file and recognizes <RealAdInsert/> as an ad inclusion tag, passing the SMIL file to the ad insertion plug-in.