Ending support for VAST 1 and F2F in the IMA SDK

On May 5, 2014, in the spirit of spring cleaning, the IMA Flash SDK will be dropping support for several rarely-used formats and SDKs:

  • VAST 1 XML format. The IMA Flash SDK will continue to support VAST 2 and will continue to improve on its existing beta support for VAST 3. For more information about what versions of VAST, VPAID and VMAP the IMA Flash SDK supports, visit the Video Features and SDK Compatibility page.
  • Flash-in-Flash (F2F) creatives. VPAID, the industry standard for interactive video ads, is the recommended alternative for replacing F2F creatives. The IMA Flash SDK currently supports VPAID 1 and has beta support for VPAID 2. 
  • IMA Flash SDK v1. This version of the SDK will no longer be guaranteed to work and won't receive bug fixes, updates, or responses to support issues. V3 of the IMA Flash SDK will be the only fully supported version of the SDK.
  • Dart Shell SDK. This DoubleClick SDK will no longer be guaranteed to work and won't receive bug fixes, updates, or responses to support issues.

What will happen if VAST 1 or an F2F creative is sent to the SDK?

If a VAST 1 ad tag response or F2F creative is sent to the SDK, the SDK will raise an AdErrorEvent with an appropriate error. For example, a VAST 1.0 response will return an AdErrorCodes.VAST_PARSING_ERROR which can be handled with the following ActionScript modified from the Flash IMA SDK example app: 

  // ...
  import com.google.ads.ima.api.AdErrorCodes;

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

  private function adsLoadErrorHandler(event:AdErrorEvent):void {
    // ...
    if (event.error.errorCode == AdErrorCodes.VAST_PARSING_ERROR) {
      trace("Invalid VAST format."); 
      // Error handling logic...
    }
  }

Other questions?

Questions about these support changes or other questions about the Flash IMA SDK? Check out the IMA SDK Flash Quick Start Guide or drop us a line on the IMA SDK forum. Follow our Google+ page for other announcements and updates.
 - , IMA SDK Team