Virtual Linear Playlists and SmartStart

Use a virtual linear playlist to simulate a linear stream experience that allows viewers to stream one or more assets in sequence.

Which solution should I use to stream VOD assets?

Use one of the following solutions to allow your viewers to stream VOD assets:

• Smartstart: Use Smartstart to generate a virtual linear experience for a single asset.

• Virtual Linear Playlist: Use a standard virtual linear playlist to generate a virtual linear experience for multiple assets.

  You may create a virtual linear playlist for a single asset. However, the recommended method is to enable Smartstart on your assets in bulk.

• Comma-Delimited VOD Playback URL: List all of the desired assets within a playback URL.

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  Use a virtual linear playlist for better performance.

• Live Channel: Schedule VOD assets within a live channel.

  A live channel's feed determines what viewers stream at any given time. This allows the live channel's viewers to stream the same content at the same time. Playback for a virtual linear playlist, on the other hand, always starts with the playlist's first asset.

Advantages

A virtual linear playlist provides the following advantages over a comma-delimited VOD playback URL:

• Faster player load times
• Higher monetization

How does a virtual linear playlist provide better performance?

• Comma-Delimited VOD Playback URL: A standard VOD playback session requests ads and inserts them into the manifest upon initiating playback. Playback does not start until the manifest is finalized. The amount of latency varies according to the number of assets in the comma-delimited VOD playback URL and their duration.

• Virtual Linear Playlist: A virtual linear playlist requests ads and inserts them into the manifest when a playback session approaches an ad break. This eliminates or reduces ad request timeouts, stale ads, and the unnecessary depletion of ad inventory.

Smartstart

Smartstart provides a virtual linear experience for a single asset through a virtual linear playlist that contains only that asset.

Enable Smartstart on one or more assets through the Bulk Smartstart endpoint. This endpoint creates a virtual linear playlist that is assigned the same system-defined ID as its asset.

What are the differences between Smartstart and a standard virtual linear playlist?

Smartstart is a specialized version of a virtual linear playlist that provides an efficient method for creating a virtual linear experience for a single asset. It creates a virtual linear playlist whose ID matches the asset it contains. This simplifies playback setup by allowing you to leverage asset IDs when generating playback URLs for Smartstart-enabled assets.

Virtual Linear Experience

Simulate a more authentic virtual linear experience by implementing the following components:

• Timeline - Set up a timeline by including timeline metadata through the dmm.schemas.top query string parameter and then using this metadata to construct the timeline within your player.
• Seeking - Use the plts (i.e., playlist timestamp) query string parameter within the playback URL to seek to a specified position in the playlist.

What's Next

• Manage Virtual Linear Playlists
• Virtual Linear Timeline and Markers