Report continuous play

  • The continuousPlayback property in the IMA SDK for iOS allows you to indicate if your player will continuously play videos like a TV broadcast.

  • Setting continuousPlayback to true requests ads specifically suitable for a continuous play environment.

  • The adWillAutoPlay property differs from continuousPlayback by indicating if the video content will play automatically or require user interaction.

  • A table is provided to help determine the correct values for continuousPlayback and adWillAutoPlay based on your video content setup.
Select platform: HTML5 Android iOS tvOS
The IMA SDK for iOS allows for setting the continuous play context for an ads request. The continuousPlayback property notifies the SDK whether the player intends to continuously play the content videos one after another, similar to a TV broadcast. When set to true, the ads returned from the request are those designated by the ads server as suitable for continuous play. Not specifying a value for this property leaves the setting as unknown. The following sample demonstrates how to set continuous play in an ads request.

Objective-C

IMAAdsRequest *request = [[IMAAdsRequest alloc]
           initWithAdTagUrl:adTagUrl
         adDisplayContainer:[self createAdDisplayContainer]
       avPlayerVideoDisplay:[[IMAAVPlayerVideoDisplay alloc] initWithAVPlayer:self.contentPlayer]
      pictureInPictureProxy:self.pictureInPictureProxy
                userContext:nil];
  request.continuousPlayback = true;
  [self.adsLoader requestAdsWithRequest:request];

Swift

let request = IMAAdsRequest(
    adTagUrl: adTagUrl,
    adDisplayContainer: createAdDisplayContainer(),
    avPlayerVideoDisplay: IMAAVPlayerVideoDisplay(avPlayer: contentPlayer),
    pictureInPictureProxy: pictureInPictureProxy,
    userContext: nil)
request.continuousPlayback = true;
adsLoader!.requestAds(with: request)

How continuous play differs from ad auto-play

The IMA SDK for iOS also allows for setting whether the player will start playing automatically or wait for user action to begin playing. This is done using the adWillAutoPlay property. When set to true, the ads returned are those designated by the ads server as suitable for an auto-play environment.

This table details when to request ads for continuous play and auto-play, based on the video content the ads are paired with.

Video Content Value for continuousPlayback Value for adWillAutoPlay
A single content video that plays upon user interaction false false
A single content video that autoplays false true
A video playlist that plays the first video upon user interaction but autoplays the following videos true false
A video playlist that autoplays the first video and autoplays the following videos true true