Guide: Connected TV Video Specs & Requirements
General Specifications for CTV Video Creative
These are general specs that will allow you to utilize most connected TV inventories.
No stitching is permitted (No multiple advertiser ads. No :15 + :15 = :30 ads for same advertiser).
Some specific inventories (ex: Hulu) will have higher requirements. Bitrate requirements vary drastically based on publisher. Your provided video asset must satisfy the highest quality requirements for the inventory types that you will serve ads on. Ex: If you’re not serving on Hulu, you don’t need to comply with Hulu specs, but if you do in the future you’ll need to provide a new, compliant video ad.
We will downsample from high quality to lower quality formats for you, complimentary. Upsampling may incur an hourly production services charge or may simply not be possible based on video quality requirements. File formats other than MP4 may be accepted but may incur an hourly production services charge.
- Duration: 15s or 30s preferred, flexible based on inventory.
- File Format: MP4
- Resolution: 1920×1080
- Frame Rate: must not be variable. 23.98, 29.97, or 30 fps
- Progressive Scan Only. No telecine or duplicate frames. Interlaced frames will be rejected.
- Video Bitrate: 4,000 kbps
- Audio Sample Rate: 48 kHz
- Audio Bit Rate Minimum: 192 kbps
- Audio Loudness: roughly -24 LKFS average
We can produce your video ad for you! And even better: Some advertisers may qualify for complimentary or reduced-rate video production.
Mezzanine High-End Specifications for Connected TV- Like Disney/Hulu Ads
- Duration: 15s-30s
- File Format: MP4
- Resolution: 16:9, will reduce to 1920×1080
- other dimensions outside 16:9 must be matted top/bottom
- Frame Rate: must not be variable. 23.98, 29.97, or 30 fps
- Progressive Scan Only. No telecine or duplicate frames. Interlaced frames will be rejected.
- Video Bit Depth: 8 or 16
- Video Bitrate: 15 Mbps minimum, 40 Mbps preferred
- Max 10 GB file size
- Audio Sample Rate: 48 kHz
- Audio Bit Rate Minimum: 192 kbps minimum, 256 kbps preferred
- Audio Loudness: roughly -24 LKFS average
Specs on this page are provided for CTV/OTT video creative hosted and managed by Levy Online. Work with your advertising specialist to review format requirements for ad tags. VAST tags are supported. Note that VPAID is not supported for CTV. VAST wrapper for VPAID components are supported. All creative components must be SSL compliant.
Specs for CTV Inventory on Most Live News/Sports or Broadcast Insertable/Preemptions (like CBS Interactive, NBC, FOX, Discovery, Max)
- Duration: 15s or 30s
- File Format: MP4
- Resolution: 1920×1080
- Frame Rate: must not be variable. 23.98, 29.97, or 30 fps
- Progressive Scan Only. No telecine or duplicate frames. Interlaced frames will be rejected.
- Video Bitrate: 10 Mbps minimum, 40 Mbps preferred
- Max 10 GB file size
- Audio Sample Rate: 48 kHz
- Audio Bit Rate Minimum: 192 kbps minimum, 256 kbps preferred
- Audio Loudness: roughly -24 LKFS average
- Two channel audio only. Surround Sound is not accepted.
These specs satisfy our requirements for connected TV on Max, CNN, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Discovery, Animal Planet, Food Network, HGTV, OWN, TLC, Travel Channel, NBA, MLB, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, NBC Networks, CBS/CBSi Networks and other general broadcast inventories that are insertable via CTV/monetized by CTV streaming services. For specific-inventory buys, your specification requirements may differ. All rights reserved to their respective trademark owners, information provided for clarification of our specifications only.
Note that these are our creative specifications for Connected TV/OTT advertising. Using these formats for high-quality CTV/OTT video should generally apply to all platforms, but obviously, we are providing these specs based on our need for quality video products. Refer to individual platform documentation if you need it.