DPAA Proposed Video Standards
Following on from the recent DPAA announcement about video standards, we have the details of the proposed common formats.
The main focus behind this announcement is to simplify the the process for advertisers, so that they only have a single set of formats to worry about when producing creative to run on out of home networks. This will be especially beneficial when their media buying will run across multiple networks – it removes a layer of perceived technical difficulty in creating different versions for different networks, and will help to unify the industry by presenting a common front for media buyers.
Primary video ad units standard formats:
| Ratio | Dimensions | Codec | Bit rate | |
| 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 | MPEG-4/H.264 AVC | 20 Mbps | Universal Ad Package |
| 4:3 | 1440 x 1080 | MPEG-4/H.264 AVC | 20 Mbps | Universal Ad Package |
| 9:16 (Portrait) | 1080 x 1920 | MPEG-4/H.264 AVC | 20 Mbps | Portrait Full Screen |
They have settled on the H.26/MPEG-4 format for its high quality, and player support for it is becoming almost universal these days.
This does mean that networks whose content platform can’t play these standards natively will have to convert any media files to their own formats for play out, but this could be a small price to pay for making it easier and more likely for media buyers to use their network in the first place.
October 30th, 2010 at 14:03 @627
I applaud the DPPA for announcing the proposed recommended standards for digital media content and for choosing a format that will work with both software based players and open standards players such as the SMIL range from IAdea.
If we are to mature as an industry standards for content, playback and reporting will be critical to mass market adoption of digital signage.
November 3rd, 2010 at 18:03 @793
[…] piece, standardizing on h.264 /MPEG-4, is a little bit dicier and gets somewhat technical. The published specs could be more specific, and leave some questions unanswered. For example, what are expected frame […]
November 5th, 2010 at 05:54 @287
Screenfeed is standardizing on the H.264/MPEG-4 format as well for all of our syndicated digital signage video content we provide to our customers. Of the thousands of screens we deliver content to just about all can work with video that matches these standards, though we do find that most networks are not using video bit rates as high as 20 Mbps. Recommendations from some of the larger signage specific hardware would run from 12 – 15 Mbps as we’ve seen. The quality is great at those rates with H.264.
So let’s keep the standards coming! Jason and I have worked together to support content syndication with Media RSS and hope that standard continues to propagate across the industry as well.