Our system was built (both the Campaign Manager and the Injector Manager) to be 100% file agnostic. What we mean by that is that users can upload any file into the system and the system will take it and process it as expected.
However, what can actually play, really depends on the player or player environment. For example, many stations use with Windows Media Players or Flash based custom players. The Ando system will allow any station to upload .wmv, .flv, or .mp4 files. But since Flash and WMP are competing technologies, a flv. will not play on a Windows Media Player and vice versa for a wmv on a Flash player.
Super Admins do have the ability to use the Ads Unit Manager (found by going to the advanced menu of their accounts) to control what types of files, their sizes and their durations, that the system will accept. If a station only runs Flash players, then they might want to prevent wmv files from being uploaded by setting the Ads Unit Manager to refuse the file type. In order to use the Ads Unit Manager, users should verify what types of files their specific player can play. The station's CDN (Content Delivery Network) should be able to provide that information.
As a rule of thumb here are specs on the most common types of accepted files:
Instream Audio ads:
1. .mp3 or .wav. Should be less than 5MB. Most stations use a 128k bitrate at 44.1HZ. We typically recommend using mp3 becasue if a wav is uploaded, the system will convert it into a mp3. So, uploading a mp3 just makes the upload process faster.
Video Gateway ads:
1. If the station is running a Windows Media Player then the files should be encoded using the Windows Media Audio 9 codec or higher and a Constant Bit Rate - VBR files will not run in most windows based players. If possible, try to keep the file size below 5MB - with a multi bit rate of 256, 150, or 56k the file size should only be a few hundred K. The dimensions should be 320x240. 300x250 is the most optimum size but most videos will not resize to 300x250 in a 4:3 format - in that case 320x240 is perfectly acceptable. NOTE: many player will not play the file if the physical dimensions are over 320x240.
2. If the station is running a Flash player then the file format should be .flv. Again, 300x250 is best, but 320x240 is perfectly acceptable.
3. mp4 files can also be uploaded as well. NOTE: Make sure these have been enabled by a Super Admin in the Ads Units manager prior to uploading.
Synced Banners:
Synced banner sizes will depend on the player. The most common sizes are 300x250 and 728x90. They can be .jpg, .gif, or .swf depending on the player. File size is not that important but as with most things online, the smaller the file size the better. We suggest that you try to keep these to 40kb and we suggest that ads larger than 100kb never get run as is without being recompressed at the station first.
