Prefetching ads

With ad prefetching, AWS Elemental MediaTailor proactively fetches ads from the ad decision server (ADS) and prepares them for upcoming ad breaks. Ad prefetching helps to maximize ad fill rates and monetization in live workflows that use SCTE-35 signaling, where ad request and transcoding timeouts can occur. Ad prefetching provides more time for programmatic ad trading. It also reduces ad insertion latency because both MediaTailor's transcoding of new assets and the ADS response run in the background.

To set up ad prefetching, you create one or more prefetch schedules on your playback configuration. A prefetch schedule tells MediaTailor how and when to retrieve and prepare ads for an upcoming ad break. Each prefetch schedule defines a single set of ads for MediaTailor to place in a single ad break. To prefetch ads for multiple ad breaks, you can create multiple prefetch schedules. When you create a prefetch schedule, you can include criteria that gives you granular control over which ad break and which playback stream MediaTailor places the prefetched ads in.

To create and manage prefetch schedules, you can use the MediaTailor console or the MediaTailor API.