Configure SSAI for VOD content

JWP allows you to configure server-side ad insertion (SSAI) for your video-on-demand (VOD) content. By integrating SSAI, ads are seamlessly stitched into the video stream just-in-time, ensuring higher impressions and an improved viewer experience.

Additionally, you can use SSAI session data to enhance and control the viewer experience.

Prerequisites

Item	Notes
Property-level enablement	Toggle turning on the feature for an entitled property Follow these steps to enable SSAI: On the Properties page, click the name of a property. The property settings appear. Under Content & ads enhancements, click Media & ads. The Media & ads tab opens. Under Server-Side Ad Integration, toggle Enable SSAI to ON.
Ad config	Configuration defining when to show ads within content and where ads are sourced At least one ad config must be set up within the property. NOTE: For VOD media, the ad config defines the default timing between ads in your content and the ad tag URL from which ads are fetched. You can set media-level ad cues to override the ad config’s default timing.
VOD content	Video-on-demand media that is hosted on the JW Platform and prepared to stream Get started with media management in the JW Platform.

Configure SSAI for VOD

To set up SSAI for your VOD content, you must retrieve the SSAI manifest URL and embed it in your player.

Follow these steps to configure server-side ads for VOD content:

Fetch the SSAI manifest URL.

Each VOD media item has two manifest URLs, one with SSAI enabled and one without ads. The SSAI-enabled manifest URL should follow the format below.
```
https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/sites/{site-id}/media/{media-id}/ssai.{manifest_extension}?ad_config_id={config-id}
```

Embed the SSAI manifest in your player.

Set the file value to your SSAI manifest during player setup.

📘
SSAI is compatible with the JWP player or any standard third-party player.

<div id="vod-player"></div>
<script>
  const playerInstance = jwplayer("vod-player").setup({
    file: "https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/sites/{site-id}/media/{media-id}/ssai.m3u8?ad_config_id={config-id}",
    autostart: true
  });
</script>

After embedding the manifest, your VOD stream will show server-side ads. You can now choose to fetch session data to enhance your advertising.

Retrieve SSAI session data

You can enhance your SSAI-enabled VOD content by configuring the player to read SSAI session data. JWP’s session data endpoint returns information on ad breaks, helping you tailor the advertising experience to your viewers.

📘
An SSAI-enabled VOD stream will play server-side ads even without using session data. Session data only contributes to the advertising experience, playback logic, and UI controls.

Follow these steps to retrieve SSAI session data:

In your player configuration, add an event listener for sessiondata.

At runtime, the player parses the manifest for #EXT-X-SESSION-DATA and emits a sessiondata event when it detects the jwpc-ssai-session-endpoint.
```
player.addEventListener('sesiondata', (data) => {
  if (data.id === 'com.jwpc.ssai-session-endpoint') {
    logMessage(`session info URL: ${data.uri}`);
    fetchInfoJson(data.uri);
  }
});
```
When sessiondata fires during playback, fetch the session data. The endpoint will return a JSON representation of the ad breaks in the session.

With the session data JSON, you can configure the player’s handling logic to address different advertising situations, such as the following:

Skipping unused filler time
Preloading ad info before a break
Managing break countdowns precisely