This blog post is a quick summary of our finds on JW Player VAST implementation.
Video advertising has a protocol called VAST that enforces/guides how ads should be served in a video player. Like driving rules. JW does not abide by all of them. Nor is necessarily the best of drivers.
Our finds:
- There are cases when JW Player enters an infinite loop trying to serve ads. No content is played. Trying to chase an ad is like forever driving in circles until your battery dies. Or browser crashes (analysis).
- Usually, there are multiple sources to the same ad. JW Player will try the first source. If it cannot play it, it will simply give up. Like having multiple roads to city center(ad). JW will try the first one. If it’s blocked, it will miss the centre altogether.
- Different ad and content types require different technologies to be played. JW Player requires you to make a one-time choice regarding what ad or content type will be able to play. Like choosing a set of summer tires up front and the road leads to snowy mountains. Winter tires are required. JW cannot make the switch back (analysis)
- JW Player does not take into consideration various restrictions set on ads behaviour. This will trigger mismatched analytics reports from involved parties (analysis)
- JW Player does not respect VAST rules regarding companion ads. It returns companions not correlated with your ads. Apples and oranges (analysis)
