Microsoft Advertising video ads: specs for 1 to 3 stars

Microsoft Advertising rates each Online Video ad one, two, or three stars by its technical quality, and the rating decides which placements it can serve on. One star needs 6–90 seconds, 2,500+ kbps, and one of ten listed sizes; two stars need an exact length of 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, or 90 seconds, MP4 or MOV, and 8,000+ kbps; three stars also allow 10 and 20 seconds and need 10,000+ kbps for MP4.

Microsoft's rules are quoted from About online video ads on Microsoft Learn, read on 2026-09-29; Microsoft can change them. Sume facts come from the Timeline 1.0 and Video inspect docs and the Sume API reference. Anything called current behavior is read from Sume's code.

What are the Microsoft Advertising video ad specs?

Microsoft says a one-star video is eligible for some video placements, two stars for most, and three stars for all, including its most premium placements. “Recommended” items are Microsoft's recommendations; the rest are stated as requirements.

Where do Microsoft Advertising video ads run?

Microsoft says Online Video ads reach people on websites and apps like MSN, Microsoft Casual Games, King, and other publisher partners, across computer, tablet, and mobile. They can appear in instream placements, while people stream media, and outstream placements, inside page content.

You can upload vertical or horizontal videos, and Microsoft says vertical videos fit gaming placements best. Its recommended vertical resolutions include 720×1280 and 1080×1920. For three stars it also recommends one video and one audio track, with durations that match within 500 ms.

How do I make a Microsoft video ad with Sume?

Assemble the spot with a Timeline 1.0 render (POST /v1/timeline-1.0/render) from media already in your workspace on media.sume.com, such as earlier Sume job outputs. These settings line up with the star tables:

• Length: audio.duration_seconds is the output length, so set 15 or 30 for an exact two- or three-star length.
• Size: output.width and output.height take even integers from 256 to 2160, so 1920×1080, 1080×1920, and 1280×720 are all available.
• Frame rate: output.fps takes 24, 25, 30, or 60; the first three are on Microsoft's recommended list.
• Audio: in current code the render encodes AAC at 192 kbps, the audio bitrate the two- and three-star tables recommend.

Can a Sume render reach 8,000 or 10,000 kbps?

Check it; you cannot set it. Timeline refuses codec and encoder fields such as codec and crf with a 400, and in current code it encodes H.264 at a constant quality (-crf 20), so the bitrate follows the picture.

To check, run POST /v1/video-inspect with frames: false on the finished MP4; the probe is unbilled and returns size_bytes, duration_seconds, audio_channels, and audio_sample_rate. The average bitrate of the whole file, sound included, is size_bytes × 8 ÷ duration_seconds, and how to check a video's bitrate walks through it. If the result is under the tier you want, or the audio is mono or 44.1 kHz where three stars recommend 48 kHz stereo, re-encode in another tool.