Video and audio formats and transcoding

^{Ad Manager hosted formats | streaming formats | audio-only formats | transcoding}

Ad manager hosted formats

You can upload video and audio content in Ad Manager as a creative for a line item or an advertiser. Ad Manager supports the following video and audio formats:

• MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files: Typically supporting H264, MPEG4 video codecs, and AAC audio codec
• AVI: Many cameras output this format. Typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM.
• MPEGPS: Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio codec
• WMV

Ad Manager allows uploads of video and audio files up to 512 MB.*

Resolution and bitrate

3GPP/MPEG-4

 

Resolution	Target video bitrate (kbps)	Target audio bitrate (kbps)
320 × 240	192	32
176 × 144	56	24

MP4/H.264/AAC

 

Resolution	Target video bitrate (kbps)	Target audio bitrate (kbps)
1920 × 1080	4000	128
1280 × 720	3000	128
1280 × 720	2000	128
854 × 480	1500	128
854 × 480	1000	128
640 × 360	400	96

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Streaming formats

Ad Manager supports the following streaming formats:

• HLS (HTTP Live Streaming)
• DASH: (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP)

Video creative profiles

If you use video creative profiles for streaming formats, it's recommended that you turn off bitrate and resolution filtering.

Resolution and bitrate

HLS/DASH

Resolution

For both HLS and DASH the variants will have a maximum resolution of 1920 × 1080, and a minimum of 320 × 180, in 5 second segments.

Bitrate

	Target video bitrate (kbps)	Target audio bitrate (kbps)
Maximum	7000	256
Minimum	120	48

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Audio-only formats

Ad Manager supports the following audio-only formats, with high, medium, and low target bitrates shown (kbps):

• MP4/AAC: 320, 128, and 64
• MP3: 320, 128, and 64

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Transcoding

Ad Manager transcodes your video and audio files into as many as nine formats and sizes, depending on the format and resolution of the files provided. Transcoded versions have the same or smaller resolutions and bitrates than the files provided.

Due to the nature of transcoding, the following may not necessarily be the same as the original:

• Video length: If you rely on an exact video length, use the length after transcoding. Video files with a duration shorter than 0.3 seconds are considered invalid and are not transcoded.
• Video output bitrate: This may be lower than the uploaded asset. When the uploaded asset is less complex (for example, contains a lot of black), encoding the data may require less bytes.

When transcoding is complete, you can remove individual transcodes using the controls in the "Active" column in the Settings tab of the creative.

The "Video transcoding has failed" error

Video transcoding in Ad Manager will fail for unsupported video or audio files, unsupported audio inputs, excessive file size, and bitrates that fall outside of the target minimum and maximum values shown for the individual formats listed above.

Audio inputs and normalization in transcoding

For Ad Manager hosted creatives, mono, stereo, 5.1, and 7.1 audio inputs are supported.

During the transcode process, Ad Manager normalizes audio by setting a target loudness value of -24 LKFS, as defined in the Advanced Television Systems Committee's ATSC A/85 guidance.

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_{* Applies to advanced and basic Ad Manager 360 accounts. See video feature availability for all publisher contracts.}