Browser SDK API Reference

Engineering Portal Digital Browser SDK API Reference

Setting up Development Environment

Step 1: Configure Content Management System (CMS)

Configure CMS to send the required values (see table below). Any internal CMS_variable names can be used for passing the data.

Ensure to capture these CMS_variable names in the SDK Configuration Form.

For more information on setting variable names, see the SDK Configuration Form included within the SDK package.

Required Data	Description	Value
dataSrc	Used when both CMS metadata and ID3 data are present in the player. Setting this field tells the SDK whether to use the CMS metadata or the ID3 payload to derive the pings	cms
sfcode	sfcode will be provided by Nielsen and specifies which Nielsen collection facility the app should connect to. Connect to a development server during development and switch to production server once app has been certified by Nielsen.	uat-cert dcr-cert
Asset Type	Type of asset: ad or content	preroll, midroll, postroll, or content
Asset ID	Unique identifier assigned to each asset	GUID, EIDR, ADID, or internal house ID
OCR Tag	OCR tag provided by Nielsen for implementation on the ad unit	Complete OCR URL
VC Program Name	VideoCensus program name. If no value is provided, DPR program name is populated in client-defined reporting in VC	Program name used for VC reporting
Title	Title of asset	Title used for reporting
Length	Duration of asset	Length in seconds, 86400 for live stream
Isfullepisode	Full episode flag “yes” or “lf” – full episode “no” or “sf” – non full episode
segA	Segment A (this is not available for video reporting as the episode title is reported)	custom value
segB	Segment B	custom value
segC	Segment C	custom value
crossId1	Standard episode ID	custom value
crossId2	Content originator (required only for distributors)	custom value
airdate	Original air date and time in Eastern Time. For non-US countries, it should be local time.	YYYYMMDD HH24:MI:SS

Content Management System for Digital Audio

Digital Audio measurement is for digital-only audio content. For Digital Audio, clients should provide the parameters shown in CMS Table for Digital Audio.

type || Type of content . For Digital Audio, set type as “radio”. || radio assetid || Station identifier, should include call letters and band. || WXYZ-FM stationType || OTA station flag and / or OTA station type 0: Custom station built per user 1: OTA streaming station with the same ad load 2: OTA station with a different ad load 3: Multicast eRadio or online station 4: On Demand Audio (podcasting) || 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 provider || Name of Provider || XYZ Provider

Required Data	Description	Value
dataSrc **	Source of the data. For Digital Audio, pass dataSrc as “cms”.	cms

Step 2: Complete the Nielsen SDK Configuration Form

The SDK is designed to map the CMS_variable names. To support the custom mapping, the developer is required to complete the SDK Configuration Form. The form will be provided during onboarding along with this guide.

Initialization

Obtain the Nielsen Application ID (apid), sfcode and Browser SDK URLs

The Nielsen apid and sfcode are required to enable SDK functionality. Technical Account Manager will provide two apids and two sfcodes for each player configuration:

• Test apid and Test sfcode: Use these IDs during development and testing
• Production apid and Production sfcode: Use these IDs in production environment after Nielsen has tested and certified the player.

Browser SDK can support URLs that use any of the protocols – HTTPS and HTTP. Contact the Technical Account Manager to get the appropriate Browser SDK package that suits the requirements.

Initialize Browser SDK

To initialize the SDK, parameters must be passed when calling the initialization function (ggInitialize).

Create a global object with the values for the required parameters (sfcode, apid, apn, and nol_sdkDebug).

<script type="text/javascript">
var _nolggGlobalParams =
{
  apid: "XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX",
  sfcode: "dcr-cert",
  apn: "sample player name / site name",
  nol_sdkDebug: "console"
};
</script>

Note: Use the debug parameter, nol_sdkDebug, for testing only. Remove the parameter before moving to production.

To initialize the SDK , use the following methods:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gg = window.NOLCMB.getInstance(instanceName /*optional*/);
gg.ggInitialize(window._nolggGlobalParams);

If no parameters are passed to getInstance(), the default instance name is used.

Note: To create a new instance of the player, send a different / new unique string. Sending the same unique string re-initializes the existing instance of the player.

Note: To measure static content on a page and integrate the SDK with a player for video measurement, it is recommended to create one SDK instance using _nolggGlobalParams.apid.

SDK Initialization – Global Parameters

Parameters	Description	Value	Required?
apid	UniqueID assigned to player/site.	Nielsen provided	Yes
apn	User-defined string value for describing the player/site.	Client provided	Yes
sfcode	Location of collection environment. During testing, all traffic should be directed to "dcr-cert".	"dcr-cert" – testing "dcr" – production	Yes
nol_sdkDebug	Enables Debug Mode which allows output to be viewed in console.	"console"	No

Note: The debug parameter, nol_sdkDebug, is only used for testing and should be removed before moving to production. The output is displayed in console debuggers when enabled..

Browser SDK API Methods & Properties

Method / Property	Event #	DTVR	DAR	Digital Audio	DCR	International (Germany)	Description
loadMetadata (Browser)	3	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Used when there is a preroll ad that needs to be associated with content metadata. The loadMetadata will first be called to populate the content metadata values and then the loadMetadata for ad metadata will be called. This allows sending a content ping with the ad info, even if the user bails out during the preroll ad.
play (Browser)	5	✔	✘	✘	✔	✔	Used when there is an ID3 fed product such as DTVR and the client does not want to send in all the CMS metadata that is sent in loadMetadata. This allows the client to send in at least the required “channel name” value associated to the ID3 feed. When the client passes in the channelName, they can change the CMS data stored by passing new values. If this event is not called then the “channel name” value populated will be the default value of “defaultChannelName”. VA Beacon: Called when content or ads start playing. The playhead position must be passed.
sendID3 (Browser)	55	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	Used to send the ID3 metadata.
setPlayheadPosition (Browser)	49	✘	✘	✔	✔	✔	Used to send the playhead position.
stop (Browser)	7	✘	✘	✘	✔	✔	Used when switching between ad and content or content and ad.
end (Browser)	57	✔	✘	✔	✔	✔	This is triggered 1) at the end of the content stream, 2) if the user switches to another piece of content 3) when the browser is refreshed or closed
staticstart (Browser)	14	✘	✘	✘	✔	✔	Used to send the metadata for the static page.
getOptOutStatus (Browser)	4	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	VA Beacon Only: Sent only after calling stop. The current position must be passed. Not needed for new International (Germany) implementations.
updateOTT (Browser)	-	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	Used to notify Browser SDK that the remote OTT device (like Google ChromeCast, Roku, Amazon FireTV, etc.) is connected / disconnected (change of OTT status).
onPaginate (Browser)	30	✘	✘	✘	✔	✔	Used to create a new instance of the SDK object
updateMetadata (Browser)	35	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	This event is used for updating metadata parameters for the content or ad that is being played.

Retrieving ID3 Tags

The video player must have the ability to extract ID3 tags and supply them to the Browser SDK, based on the HLS standard.

• An ID3 tag spans two PES packets.
  • In the first PES packet, look for www.nielsen.com, this is the start of the ID3 tag. Continue to parse the first PES packet until the undefined char "\ufffd" is found. This forms the first half of the ID3 tag
  • In the second PES packet, identify the end pattern – a regEx of /(\/\d+){3}/ and look to remove the lowest index of either "\x00" and/or "\ufffd". Now the second packet has been appended and the demarcation of the Nielsen-specific data has been defined.

Follow the procedure below, to extract Nielsen ID3 tags from an MPEG-2 transport stream (including HLS streams).

1. Parse the Program Map Table (PMT) to find the PID of the metadata stream. Confirm the presence of the metadata descriptor described in section 2.3.3 of Apple’s “HTTP Live Streaming Metadata Spec.pdf”. Only private streams with metadata descriptor present should be considered as ID3-tag metadata streams.
2. Parse the HLS/Transport stream for any PES header with the PID found in step 1.
3. Follow standard MPEG-2 parsing procedures to locate the start of the payload of the PES packet.
4. Copy the PES payload into a buffer.
5. The ID3 tag spans 2 PES packets. Parse the stream for the next packet whose PID is set to the PID found in step 1. Typically the ID3 Tag is of 249 bytes. The steps below guide towards extraction of the ID3 tag
   1. In the first PES packet, look for "www.nielsen.com" , this is the start of the ID3 tag. Keep on parsing the first PES packet until the undefined char "\ufffd" is found. This forms the first half of the ID3 tag
   2. In the second PES packet, identify the end pattern, a regEx of /(\/\d+){3}/ and look to remove the lowest index of either “\x00” and/or “\ufffd”. Now the second packet has been appended and the demarcation of the Nielsen specific data has been defined. This segment can be simply substringed.
   3. Concatenate this substringed segment with the payload derived from the first packet get the ID3 payload.
6. Check the length of the contents in the buffer to make sure that it is equal to the size of a Nielsen ID3 tag.
7. Ensure that the ID3 byte array is converted into the string and escape it, so that the SDK can consume it.

Repeat steps 2 through 7 for all ID3 tags in the stream.

References

• ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007 Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Systems
• https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/sdk/developers/AudioVideo/Conceptual/HTTP_Live_Streaming_Metadata_Spec/HTTP_Live_Streaming_Metadata_Spec.pdf

Sample ID3 tags

• www.nielsen.com/X100zdCIGeIlgZnkYj6UvQ==/X100zdCIGeIlgZnkYj6UvQ==/AAAB2Jz2_k74GXSzx4npHuI_JwJd3QSUpW30rDkGTcbHEzIMWleCzM-uvNOP9fzJcQMWQLJqzXMCAxParOb5sGijSV9dNM3QiBniJYGZ5GI-lL1fXTTN0IgZ4iWBmeRiPpS9AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFJWFM5SVhTONNU=/00000/00000/00
• www.nielsen.com/X100zdCIGeIlgZnkYj6UvQ==/R8WHe7pEBeqBhu8jTeXydg==/AAICoyitYqlxT7n6aZ0oMCGheFi4CXFp46AMUPZz1lMr_M9tr3_cjee1SHqxrOiVerMDLeyn9xzocZSKwi746Re8vNOtpNCAZjYABs_J0R25IHpvOc1HS8QHGgD5TgOJeS6gX100zdCIGeIlgZnkYj6UvVJWFNhSVhTiPE0=/00000/46016/00

Note: ID3 tags are not applicable for International (Germany)

Browser Opt-Out Implementation

The site in which video content is being measure via Nielsen methodology must provide the means for the user to opt-out of, or opt back into Nielsen Measurement.

For Browser-based applications, opt-out setting is stored via Nielsen cookie. Therefore, it is only necessary that users be made aware of measurement opt-out by incorporating the template below in the user interface.

Sample Opt Out Template

Our properties may feature Nielsen’s proprietary measurement software which will allow to contribute to market research, like Nielsen’s TV Ratings. To learn more about this information, see http://www.nielsen.com/digitalprivacy. Nielsen’s software may collect your choices with regards to it.

Nielsen Privacy Requirements

Privacy protections that Nielsen ensures to have with each App SDK integration are as follows.

• Disclosure of viewership data collection in app store description
• Disclosure of viewership data collection in EULA / Privacy Policy
• A link in the EULA/Privacy policy, or in another conspicuous location within the App, to a Nielsen-hosted web page outlining what Nielsen is collecting and how it is being used
• Method for users to opt-out of Nielsen measurement, any time while using the application

Data Collected

Type of Information	Parameter	Transmitted to Nielsen?	Sent to Provider?
Nielsen ID3 Watermark
	FinalDistributor Timestamp	Yes	No
	Program Content Timestamp	Yes	No
	Mobile Breakout Code	Yes	No
	Commercial Credit Code – Linear or Dynamic	Yes	No
	Time ShiftedViewing Code	Yes	No
	Segment Number	Yes	No
	Segment View Pattern	Yes	No
Device/App Info
	Device OSVersion	Yes	Yes
	Device Model	Yes	No
	Cache Buster	Yes	Yes
	SDKDisabled Flag	Yes	No
	ServerCode	Yes	No
	Channel or URL	Yes	No
Device/App Info
	Client ID	Yes	No
	Campaign ID	Yes	Yes
	Nielsen Unique Device ID	Yes	No
	Application ID	Yes	No
	DeviceGroup (ex. Tablet, Smartphone, Desktop)	Yes	Yes
	OS Group (ex. Android, iOS, Windows)	Yes	Yes
	SDKVersion	Yes	No
	IP Address for DMA, Country Code	Yes	Yes

Note: Data is hashed, and encrypted using AES 128 before transmission to data provider.

Example ping sent to provider

• https://provider.com/cgi-bin/brandlift.php?campaign_id=ff12725d724fac7934cf6003f096b4cd&placement_id=a4164b8fba9ee7c873a9c72c7091bb58&creative_id=25280139b61a947e127a52f56c8a2fdd&segment1=9000&segment2=41&segment3=iOS&OSVer=iOS6.1&c9=&devgrp=tablet&h=f5f243fe6d&rnd=1376971827360

This ping passes the following parameters to the provider:

• Campaign ID – (campaign, placement, creative)
• Country Code
• DMA
• OS Group (ex. iOS, Android)
• DeviceOS Version
• Device Advertiser ID
• DeviceGroup (ex. Tablet, Smartphone, Desktop)
• Cache Buster

Testing

See Digital Measurement Testing - Testing Browser Implementation.