Android TV support

Smart Instream SDK is compatible with Android TV devices as long as they run on Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher.

This page presents the limitations and some info on how to get started with this platform.

  1. Limitations
  2. Getting started

Limitations

Smart Instream SDK behaves identically on regular Android devices and on Android TV devices, except for the following features:

  • Ads are not skippable: skip offset (from the VAST response or from the SVSAdConfigurationPublisherOptions) will be ignored on Android TV and all ads will be played until the end.
  • Clickthrough is not supported: ads are not clickable on Android TV and click URL from the VAST response will be ignored.
  • Some ads might not be playable on some Android TV devices, for Exoplayer content player: since the Smart Instream SDK internally uses the Exoplayer library to display ads, when displaying the content also on an Exoplayer player, the hardware must support multiple simultaneous Exoplayer instances. However, some lower-end Android TV devices do not support that feature, and rather than disrupting the content playback to try and play an ad, the instream SDK simply drops the ad playback. Note that this typically happens when both the content and the ad have the same encoding.

Note that you don't need to create specific insertions for TV devices. Compatibility is ensured between Web, In-app and OTT TV. The same insertion can be used for all available platforms.

Getting started

The same Smart Instream SDK is used for both phone & TV devices and the integration is identical (including the library that must be imported).

You will find more information about the integration in the Android section of this documentation.