Tag Archives: ima_flash

Sunsetting Flash in the IMA SDKs

On May 15, 2018, Google will be sunsetting Flash in the IMA SDKs. This change will affect all users of the Flash IMA SDK, and a very small number of users of the HTML5 IMA SDK.

Changes to the Flash SDK

As of May 15, 2018, attempts to load the Flash IMA SDK will fire an AdErrorEvent.AD_ERROR from the AdsLoader. This is a change to the portion of the Flash SDK that is loaded at run time, and therefore will affect all Flash SDK implementations in production. If you've followed our implementation best practices, your handler for this error will play your content video:


private function initAdsLoader():void {
  ...
  adsLoader.addEventListener(AdErrorEvent.AD_ERROR, adsLoadErrorHandler);
}

private function adsLoadErrorHandler(event:AdErrorEvent):void {
  trace("warning", "Ads load error: " + event.error.errorMessage);
  videoPlayer.play();
}
We strongly encourage all publishers still using the Flash SDK to migrate to the HTML5 SDK. As part of this sunset, we will also be removing the Flash SDK documentation from developers.google.com and removing the Flash samples from GitHub.

Changes to the HTML5 SDK

As of May 15, 2018, the HTML5 IMA SDK will stop supporting all Flash ads. This includes linear, non-linear, and companion ads. If your VAST response includes only Flash media files, the IMA SDK will throw error 403 - VAST_LINEAR_ASSET_MISMATCH for linear ads, and error 503 - VAST_NONLINEAR_ASSET_MISMATCH for non-linear ads. Flash companion ads will fail silently. The HTML5 SDK stopped supporting Flash VPAID ads with the deprecation of the Flash IMA SDK last June.


As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.


 - , IMA SDK Team

Sunsetting Flash in the IMA SDKs

On May 15, 2018, Google will be sunsetting Flash in the IMA SDKs. This change will affect all users of the Flash IMA SDK, and a very small number of users of the HTML5 IMA SDK.

Changes to the Flash SDK

As of May 15, 2018, attempts to load the Flash IMA SDK will fire an AdErrorEvent.AD_ERROR from the AdsLoader. This is a change to the portion of the Flash SDK that is loaded at run time, and therefore will affect all Flash SDK implementations in production. If you've followed our implementation best practices, your handler for this error will play your content video:


private function initAdsLoader():void {
  ...
  adsLoader.addEventListener(AdErrorEvent.AD_ERROR, adsLoadErrorHandler);
}

private function adsLoadErrorHandler(event:AdErrorEvent):void {
  trace("warning", "Ads load error: " + event.error.errorMessage);
  videoPlayer.play();
}
We strongly encourage all publishers still using the Flash SDK to migrate to the HTML5 SDK. As part of this sunset, we will also be removing the Flash SDK documentation from developers.google.com and removing the Flash samples from GitHub.

Changes to the HTML5 SDK

As of May 15, 2018, the HTML5 IMA SDK will stop supporting all Flash ads. This includes linear, non-linear, and companion ads. If your VAST response includes only Flash media files, the IMA SDK will throw error 403 - VAST_LINEAR_ASSET_MISMATCH for linear ads, and error 503 - VAST_NONLINEAR_ASSET_MISMATCH for non-linear ads. Flash companion ads will fail silently. The HTML5 SDK stopped supporting Flash VPAID ads with the deprecation of the Flash IMA SDK last June.


As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.


 - , IMA SDK Team

Latency best practices in the IMA SDKs

One of the most important factors in keeping users on your page or in your app is latency - the lower your latency, the more likely your users are to stick around. With this in mind, we'd like to remind you about our best practices for reducing latency with the IMA SDKs. In general, you can reduce latency by doing as much IMA set-up work as possible on page or app load, before your user tries to play a video. The following can be done in all of the SDKs before the user attempts to play a video:

  • Creating your ads loader.
  • Creating your ads request.
  • Requesting ads.
  • Obtaining the ads manager.
  • Registering ads manager event handlers.

You can find more information on optimizing latency in each of our SDKs at the links below:

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

Deprecating Flash in the IMA SDKs

On June 1, 2017, Google will cease development of Flash in the IMA SDKs. This will end support for the IMA SDK for Flash, as well as support for Flash VPAID ads in the HTML5 SDK. We strongly encourage all publishers still using the Flash SDK to migrate to the HTML5 SDK. We also strongly encourage advertisers still trafficking Flash VPAID ads to migrate those ads to JavaScript VPAID.

What does this mean for the Flash SDK?

We will not actively prevent ad serving to the Flash SDK. However, new releases will stop after June 1st and we will no longer fix bugs or answer support questions. If ad serving or playback stops working after this date for the Flash SDK, it will not be fixed. We strongly encourage you to migrate to the HTML5 SDK.

What does this mean for the HTML5 SDK?

We will no longer support Flash VPAID ads in the HTML5 SDK. Flash VPAID ads served to the HTML5 SDK will not be rendered and the SDK will fire an error. We strongly encourage you to migrate your Flash VPAID ads to JavaScript VPAID.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team