The following diagrams provide a visual overview of how cue points and other metadata elements work together to provide ad replacement for your on-air ad breaks. Switching to online ads provides distinct advantages in terms of revenue and measurement (see Ad Insertion and Revenue Opportunities in the Why Metadata Matters section).
The diagrams present a number of scenarios and use-cases so you can compare the effects of various levels of sophistication with your metadata integration.
Click any diagram to enlarge it.
Diagram 1: Simple Start-break and End-break
This diagram shows four scenarios within a simple integration in which the cue points only indicate when the broadcast goes to break and when it comes out of break. As you will see, this works reasonably well when there are enough online paid ads available to fill the break duration. It also shows what happens if there are not enough paid ads.
Diagram 2: Cue Points for Every Ad Event
This diagram shows five scenarios within a more sophisticated integration in which cue points indicate every ad event during the break. This setup allows for better buffer and incurred delay management. Cases 1 through 4 are the same here as are shown in Diagram 1; case 4 is where you see the most dramatic difference with this setup.
Diagram 3: Ad Injection and Incurred Delay
This diagram shows you how incurred delay builds up under two integration scenarios discussed in Diagrams 1 and 2. As you can see, incurred delay is generally less of an issue when you have cue points marking each ad event.
Diagram 4: Buffer Management and Recovery
This diagram shows you how buffer management and recovery work under the two integration scenarios discussed in Diagrams 1 and 2. As you can see, buffer management and recovery is clearly superior when you have cue points marking each ad event.
