I've long wondered why they don't do this for video ads. If they were served as part of the main video stream it would be almost impossible for ad-blockers to filter them.
(I even think the DASH segmentation would allow them to this without reencoding the original video, but that's just speculation on my part)
I think maybe the problem is that you do need to have a seperate mode for ads, so you can click on them. and as long as that's the case, there are going to be ways to block them
- Embed ads into the video itself, as suggested above
- Stream ad start/end events to the browser, with no duration info
- On sending the start event, lock the user's session such that they can't change their position within the video. lock it server-side, and client-side. Start event will include details of the ad being displayed for any interactivity.
- Unlock the session after the duration of the ad has elapsed, which is only known server-side. Then send the end event to the browser so it can be unlocked client-side.
you could still block that ad, you would just be delaying people. the browser plugin could fake stream the ad before you click play. it still means you have to wait sometimes, but you won't have to actually watch the ad. The big problem with this is that now you're heavily incentivizing people to spoof ad watching to get around it, and then you start having trouble measuring the real numbers, which advertisers won't be happy about
(I even think the DASH segmentation would allow them to this without reencoding the original video, but that's just speculation on my part)