VAST3 ad pod reference

VAST 3.0 introduced ad pods, which group multiple ads into a single ad break and play them consecutively. In a VAST-defined ad pod, the VAST response identifies the ads in the pod and their sequence.

JWX supports ad pods in three ways:

• VAST-defined ad pods: A VAST 3.0+ ad response defines the ads in the pod and their sequence. This is the recommended approach for VAST ad pods.
• Static VAST ad pods: Player configuration can define a pod with the advertising.schedule[].pod property.
• JWX Ad Server ad pods: A Dynamic Ads schedule can define an ad pod directly in the JWX Dashboard. This configuration is separate from VAST-defined ad pods.

When a VAST 3.0+ ad tag returns an ad pod, JWX plays the ads consecutively at the scheduled ad break. VAST ad pods can be used with preroll, midroll, and postroll breaks.

Ad pod countdown message

By default, JWX will display a message prefixed to the ad countdown message: Ad x of y, where x is the current ad playing and y is the total number of ads in the pod.

The subsequent portion of the ad message is fully customizable. See our article about custom countdown messages for more information.

Ad pod event properties

Each Advertising API method also contains these two attributes if the ad is part of a pod:

• sequence: Position of the ad in the pod that is currently playing
• podcount: Total number of ads in the pod

Configure a VAST ad pod with an ad tag

The following example configures a JWX player to use a VAST ad pod. In this example, adpod.xml returns the VAST response that defines the pod.

playerInstance = jwplayer("container");
playerInstance.setup({
    file: "video.mp4",
    advertising: {
        client: "vast",
        schedule: {
            adbreak1: {
                offset: "pre",
                tag: "adpod.xml"
            }
        }
    }
});