Silverlight streaming seems to have caught the fancy of many and a lot of sites are now streaming Silverlight videos.. however very few are making money from doing so!!..
Recently came across an Open Source Silverlight Media player called OpenVideoPlayer which lets you do just that!!..
Dynamically Insert ads into your media files with configurations like Preroll, Mid-roll and Post Roll(which basically mean, before, in between or after a video file plays) . It uses the MAST sequencing engine for sequencing of ads and VAST as the ad-connector.
For those new to the ad monetization world..VAST would dictate the “WHAT” of an ad. Its a flexible XML format which specifies links to the ad creatives and allows click through and tracking..MAST on the other hand dictates the “WHEN” of the ad,its an XML format which specifies WHEN the ad should play and links to the VAST source to indicate which one. You can set multiple trigger conditions to set off an ad!
So using these two you can control which ads are played when and where they are streamed from..you can use Ad-Servers like Atlas or any other.
OK enough “Gyaan” as we say in India:-)…lets have some screenshots to understand what we are talking about..
Here is the Player playing a video
And here is the same video with a pre-roll ad..
and the video starts after the ad is done with 
Lets look at what this solution structure looks like..
Lets see what’s what here..
- OVP.xap:- The Open source Open Video Player. You can download this from here
- MASTSequencing.xap:- The Mast Sequencing component(remember..it defines the WHEN!!).
- VASTAdHandler:- the VAST component(WHAT!!)
These three are pretty standard and frankly you need to modify these…what you may want to modify are.. the
- Index.html:- Which holds the OVP.XAP, configures it with the plugin handlers and specifies the media source(see feedsource)
<object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%" id="slp" > <param name="source" value="OVP.xap"/><param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="2.0.30923.0" /><param name="onerror" value="onSilverlightError" /><param name="background" value="black" /><param name="MaxFrameRate" value="30" /> <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=124807" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108181" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style: none"/></a> <param name="initparams" value='showstatistics=true, autoplay=true, muted=false, playlistoverlay=true, theme=themes/Default.xaml, smfPlugins=BasicMediaPlugin.xap,plugins=MASTSequencing.xap VASTAdHandler.xap , mast:sourceuri=mast.xml,stretchmode=Fit, stretchmodefullscreen=Fit, feedsource=http%3A//rss.streamos.com/streamos/rss/genfeed.php%3Ffeedid%3D426%26groupname%3Dproducts' /> </object>
- MAST.xml:- You can change the VAST location to specify a different ad source. You can also specify the ad timings. For example this one specifies a Pre-Roll and a Mid Roll Ad, so the ad plays before the video and again after 20 seconds. Also notice the Operator= GEQ, which means Greater or Equal , so suppose the user fast forwards the video from 10 to say 30 seconds, the ad will start showing at 30 seconds..
While we are still at it…lets also see what the VAST.xml looks like…as per this MAST.xml we are pointing to http://api.atdmt.com/adserv.api/viewad/sa=135109908;sf=VAST_PreRoll_XML_V2;pf=FLV;br=500;strm=1
Here is what it looks like
So basically its a list of Ad addresses. What the VASTAdHandler then does is, it goes through each ad and plays the first compatible format ad which in my case happens to be wmv…since i am using a BasicMediaPlayer..
Pretty simple configurations and an excellent Open Source tool…Did i mention that its plugin based so it can be easily extended!!
Keep looking here for more insights into newer abilities!!
Cennest