Showing content time instead of stream time

[Fernando]

Hi,

I'm using the IMA DAI lib for Android, and I'm wondering if is it possible to show the content time instead the stream time(content + ads) in the player? 

I've been looking in the documentation without any luck. The samples show the stream time and the scrubber progresses based on this time. 

Hope you can help me.

Thanks.

[IMA SDK]

Hello,

Welcome to IMA SDK Support team. Thank you for reaching out to us.

With DAI SDK, the SDK then returns a combined video stream, so that you don't have to manage switching between ad and content video within your app. Thus, this comes with showing the overall stream time in the player instead of just the content time. This is a normal behavior of the SDK. We can raise your concern for showing the content time instead of the stream time to our wider team, but before that, can you share to us your publisher id and business use case for this feature? Asking this so our team can have quick validation on your use case if this will be feasible as feature request.

 

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2okfML:ref"

Thanks,
 

IMA SDK Team

[Fernando Velazquez]

Hi,

At Brightcove, one of our products is an Android SDK for video playback. We are not publishers. We are working on a module to offer DAI functionality to our customers. We already offer the standard IMA.

We want to show the content time over the stream time because it seems more natural for the end user. Right now, using the Tears of Steel video sample, after the pre-roll ends the content starts at the 11seconds which seems odd for the consumer.

Does the library offer some workaround for this right now?

Thanks.

Fernando Velazquez

Staff Android Engineer

Brightcove, Inc.

[IMA SDK]

Hi Fernando,

Thank you for providing more information.

Please allow me to raise this to the rest of the team to request this feature for your use case, subject for review. For now, we would recommend that you monitor our blog post and release notes for future updates. 

Reference links:

• blog post - https://ads-developers.googleblog.com/search/label/ima_sdk
• release notes - https://developers.google.com/interactive-media-ads/docs/sdks/android/dai/history 

[IMA SDK]

Hello Fernando,

This is Jackson from the IMA SDK team to help with your request.

I wanted to check if it is possible for your team to use SteamManager.getContentTimeMsForStreamTimeMs() to get the content time of the stream, and render that value for your player?

Please let me know if that works for your use-case, or if you have any farther questions.

Thank you,
Jackson
IMA SDK team

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[Fernando Velazquez]

Hi Jackson,

Thanks for your suggestion. Actually, we are using that method. We figured out how to implement the behavior we want and that method is one we used.

Now I’d like to take the opportunity to ask if there’s a way to obtain the ads while the stream loads instead of just the cue points? Because right now we are calculating the total ad’s duration based in the cue points.

Thank you.

Fernando Velazquez

Staff Android Engineer

Brightcove, Inc.

[IMA SDK]

Hello Fernando,

I think this may be a limitation of how the ads are decisioned. The IMA SDK won't have the ad information until the LOADED adEvent. Does that timing work for your use-case? or would you require more advanced access to the ad info for the stream?

[Fernando Velazquez]

Hi,

In our use case where we display the content time instead of the stream time, we use the cue points to figure out the duration of each ad(using the startTimeMs and endTimeMs), we sum up the duration of all the cue points and subtract that to the stream duration.

For now it seems to work on VOD but I think it’s better if we have access to all the ads right when we get the stream url.

Is there a way to have access to all the data provided by the 'time-events.json' file?

Thanks.

Fernando Velazquez

Staff Android Engineer

Brightcove, Inc.

[IMA SDK]

Hell Fernando,

I apologize, I was not clear in my previous reply. My understanding is, IMA does not have access all the ads at the start of the stream. The ads that will actually fill the cue points are decisioned as the stream progresses. The ad info is only available following the LOADED ad event.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

[IMA SDK]

Sorry for the previous email.

It should start with, "Hello Fernando".

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