How Can Service Providers Deliver Targeted Ads in Ecosystems Where Ad Opportunities Aren’t Marked?
Abstract
In this paper, we outline a solution that can be used to bootstrap the targeted ad insertion ecosystem without widely distributed requirements across the end-to-end video delivery chain. We show how service providers can create a complete ecosystem locally, just before video is distributed to subscribers. The solution relies on a new CableLabs specification that creates a nonproprietary, flexible and complete architecture that enables both broadcast and targeted (multiscreen) ad insertion capabilities.
Introduction

Event Signaling and Management

Use Cases
- Linear ethnic content brought for distribution in a region that allows ad insertion, but for which the source material has no ad signaling.
- DVR recorded content in North America where existing national ads are not marked, but which can be substituted with ads after some time window (typically 72 hours).
- Emerging ad insertion markets where content owners do not mark ads.
- Blackout events that are not known when the original program is originated.
Ad Fingerprinting
Manual Fingerprinting


Automatic Fingerprinting

The End-to-End Ecosystem
In the end-to-end ecosystem (shown below), an ad fingerprinting database is used to host fingerprints of ads that were either manually or automatically created. This database feeds a Fingerprint Detection process that continuously compares the linear input stream with the stored fingerprints. When a match is found, the Fingerprint Detection process connects to a POIS and signals the time in the stream that the ad occurred, as well as the ad’s duration. The POIS then uses an ESAM interface to inject an SCTE-35 signal into the incoming stream at the transcoder, both at the beginning and end of the ad, and it includes the ad’s duration in the first cue. The transcoder must then react as it would normally when encountering an SCTE-35 cue in an input stream: It must pass this cue to its output, so that downstream devices can also be aware that an ad opportunity has occurred; and it must insert an IDR frame into its transcoded output, so that downstream packagers can create a fragment boundary at the ad boundaries — both at the beginning and end of the ad.
The rest of the dataflow proceeds as it normally would for an ad insertion ecosystem containing SCTE-35 cues. For linear broadcast distribution, the transcoder output feeds a broadcast splicer. For adaptive bitrate distribution, the transcoder output feeds a packager with a downstream system for manifest manipulation or client-side ad insertion.
For cloud DVR systems that capture the linear stream, the included SCTE-35 signal can be used to substitute ads during playout or to excise the ads, if desired. Basically, all functionality that is available to architectures that natively carry SCTE-35 cues is now available using this architecture. This approach means that the testing, monitoring, and downstream ecosystems that have been developed for native SCTE-35 systems can now be leveraged in this architecture, and this is another major value over any type of proprietary or non-standards-based system.
