Sony Liv has partnered with Amagi to use Amagi's Thunderstorm product to personalise mid-roll ads. Mid-roll ads are significant because pre-roll ads, which come before videos, are easy to figure out. MediaNama has reached out to Sony Liv for comment on what types of streams Thunderstorm will be used to insert ads in. Mid-roll ads — especially in live-streams like sports matches and TV channel streams — are a little harder to configure. That's especially if the mid-roll ads have to be personalised. Currently, streams of sports matches on sites like Hotstar have online-only mid-roll ads that are not customised like banner ads on the rest of the (non-video) internet. “The Thunderstorm platform is designed for high concurrency, and to deliver frame-accurate ad insertions at scale. These capabilities become vital for Sony Liv, especially since many of its premium channels have high number of concurrent users”, Amagi CEO Deepakjit Singh said. The product has already integrated with Sony's in-house programmatic ad system and partner ad networks. Amagi's Thunderstorm uses machine learning to detect ads in channel feeds, and replace them with new, targeted ads on the server, Sony said in a release. Non customised static mid-roll ads are less valuable than the customised ones, so it makes sense for Sony to enter the segment.
