Aspect ratio missing for custom native templates (video eligible) with VAST redirect videos

[Fawkes Wei]

Encountered an issue when I'm using video eligible custom native templates in Google Ad Manager

The VAST tag url is https://raw.githubusercontent.com/InteractiveAdvertisingBureau/VAST_Samples/master/VAST%203.0%20Samples/Inline_Linear_Tag-test.xml

And as you can see in the screenshot under assets it's a 16 second mp4 video with dimension of 400x300, everything looks correct

But in inside iOS app when the ad is received (got a GADNativeCustomTemplateAd object)

mediaView.mediaContent.hasVideoContent returns YES but mediaView.mediaContent.aspectRatio returns zero

Even after the video starts playing, mediaView.mediaContent.aspectRatio is still zero

There's no way to get the size/aspect ratio of the video to decide how much space the video ad should take up.

p.s. There is no problem if the "Linear video creative type" is "Ad Manager hosted", aspectRatio is always correct. This issue only happens when its "VAST redirect"

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello there,

Thanks for reaching out tor us. Can you send us your Ad Unit ID using "Reply Privately to Author" option for us to debug this further? Please make sure that the Ad Unit ID serves the item that you mentioned and we will have a look into this.

Regards,
Deepika Uragayala
Mobile Ads SDK Team
 

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[Fawkes Wei]

Replied privately with the ad unit id, please take a look. Thanks!

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello Wei,

Thanks for sharing the Ad unit Id. I was not able to serve a custom native template creative that has VAST video form the Ad unit Id that you have shared and  I'm receiving No Ads to Show. Can you please make sure to enable ads to be reliably served for us to debug this further?  I  also suspect that this should be an issue with the creative as well. Are you able to reproduce the issue with any other creatives? 

[Fawkes Wei]

Sorry I forgot to include the template id 11832705 which is needed when requesting custom template averts 

Just return that id in nativeCustomTemplateIDsForAdLoader: delegate method, then you should be able to get the video eligible creative that has VAST video

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello Wei, 

I'm not sure if the creative is active on your end. I am still not getting any ads when requested with template Id that you have provided. If you are seeing the issue with any other creatives, can you please share the details so that we can give a last try before sharing this with the rest of the team? 

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello Wei,

Thank you so much for sharing additional details. I was able to reproduce the issue and I will share this with the rest of the team for further investigation and will keep you posted if I have any further updates on this issue.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi,

This is Sam from the Mobile Ads SDK team.  Thanks for the sample app reproducing the issue. We've verified your issue and are working on a fix.

We'll update when we have further information to report.

Regards

Sam

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[Fawkes Wei]

Any updates on this one?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi,

This is a known issue and basically custom native templates have never supported providing an aspect ratio for video.

That being said, the team is planning to address this this quarter, but there will not be a fix in the near term.

I will update you when something is close to being released.

[Fawkes Wei]

Is there any work around to get the aspect ratio of the video?

Since the ad space in the iOS app has an dynamic height, it needs a height to place the video nicely without extra space wasted.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hey Fawkes, 
You could try getting the aspect ratio from the media view on the app. Our engineering team is working on this feature and it should be available in the next few months. Thanks.

Jon

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[Fawkes Wei]

Any updates on this?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi,

I'm afraid not, this is a system-level issue with native Android video components, so we are waiting on a fix in that and then we can test and verify updated SDK behavior. 

The video component fix is currently being tested, but given the wide-ranging impacts the release timeline is not predictable.

[Fawkes Wei]

Any updates on this issue? Possible to have a fix on iOS SDK first?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi,

This is not a platform specific issue so the fix will most likely hit both platforms at once. The information is not available from the server which is why it is not populated in the client.

It appears to be quite a complex issue to resolve but there has been steady work on it (it's much more than the aspect ratio, it's related to video meta data for Ad Manager).

I don't know the exact timing of the fix but I will keep an eye on it and let you know when it's available. 

Regards
 

[Fawkes Wei]

It's over a year now, any updates on this issue?

[Fawkes Wei]

Any updates after 1.5 years?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Fawkes,

Nothing substantial. Internal bug is still open, confirmed this still happens in iOS 8.5.0.

We also have a separate bug open on Android, as version 20.0.0 unintentionally "fixed" the issue by removing access to an aspect ratio API on custom native templates altogether! But once we add back access to the API again, it'll likely still return 0 as well until the above issue is fixed.

Thanks,
Eric, Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi there,

The aspect ratio issue should now be correctly populated for video ads. Also, Android SDK version 21.3.0 (https://developers.google.com/admob/android/rel-notes#21.3.0) added NativeCustomFormatAd.getMediaContent(), providing access to metadata APIs like aspect ratio.