Do you think using SSAI (server-side ad insertion) removes all the integration logic for advertisements from the client-side or frontend app?
The answer is no, it’s not entirely correct to think that SSAI implies that the video serving backend controls all ad-playback and tracking, while the client or app simply playback a stream with all the advertisements embedded within it.
In most cases, a different UI is required while the ads are playing. For instance, hiding player controls, restricting seeking (or scrubbing) past unwatched ad breaks, sending analytics events for ad impressions, etc. In order to achieve this, most SSAI providers require a “client-side” SDK that helps to implement such logic.
As adverts are embedded within a stream, there is no straightforward way to know when the ads are actually playing, especially within Live events where the stream itself is an endless moving DVR window. In order to get this information, the “Client-side” SDKs rely on the VAST responses that are supplied separately from the stream and contain arrays of ad breaks with their respective timestamps.
Another way of getting this information is listening to ID3 tags, which is a type of metadata that is embedded in the media itself. However even if the SDK provides you with all this data, you still have to implement client-side UI logic around it.
So in gist, SSAI has a bit of CSAI 😉