Streaming TV Creative Specs for Amazon DSP

The universal requirements

Across every DSP streaming placement, three things hold constant: 16:9 aspect ratio, a minimum 1920x1080 frame, and acceptance of H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 video with AAC audio at a 500MB file cap. Minimum audio bitrate is 192 kbps at 44.1 or 48 kHz sample rate. These are the specs worth building a master creative file against — everything else is a platform-specific variation layered on top of this common floor.

Your logo and brand name are also required to appear inside the video creative itself on Prime Video specifically, rather than as a clickable overlay layered on top the way some in-feed formats allow — worth confirming for other placements individually rather than assuming the same rule applies everywhere, since the underlying viewing experience across non-skippable streaming inventory is similar but not identical platform to platform.

Where the specs actually diverge

Prime Video carries the strictest bitrate floor: 15 Mbps minimum, with 50 Mbps recommended, well above the 8 Mbps minimum that applies to other platforms in the DSP's streaming inventory. Duration options diverge more sharply. In the US and Canada, Prime Video accepts 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds; Twitch accepts 15 or 30; Fire TV Channels accepts 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90; and third-party apps accept the widest range, from 6 seconds up to 90. European markets shift the whole set toward 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 60-second options across most platforms. A single 30-second cut, exported at Prime Video's bitrate floor, will generally clear every other placement's requirements — but the reverse isn't true, which is the practical reason to build to the strictest spec first rather than the loosest.

Pause ads follow an entirely separate spec: a static 1920x1080px image, JPEG or PNG, capped at 2MB — nothing about the video duration or bitrate rules above applies. Treat pause ads as their own creative production line rather than something a video export can be repurposed into by taking a single frame; a frame pulled from a 50 Mbps video export will rarely look right at full resolution as a standalone still.

Codec compatibility is worth double-checking on older creative assets too — files exported years ago on since-retired codec settings sometimes fail current spec even when the visible video quality looks fine, since the acceptable codec list (H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 with AAC audio) has tightened over time as platforms standardized around fewer supported formats.

A worked example

Building one master file for a $25,000 monthly plan spanning Prime Video, Fire TV Channels and Twitch: export at 1920x1080, 16:9, H.264, 50 Mbps (clearing Prime Video's recommended rate comfortably, well above every other platform's floor), AAC audio at 192 kbps or higher, under 500MB. Cut it at 30 seconds as the primary length, since that duration is accepted everywhere in this specific mix, and hold a 15-second cut in reserve for placements where shorter creative is worth testing against completion-rate benchmarks. That two-length approach covers the whole plan without a separate export for every individual platform.

If the same plan later adds Netflix or Disney's DRAX bundle, re-check the master file against those platforms' current specs before assuming it clears automatically — third-party integrations don't necessarily inherit Amazon's own published spec sheet exactly, and confirming rather than assuming is the cheaper failure mode.

What to do when a file gets rejected

Check bitrate and frame size first — Prime Video's 15 Mbps floor is the single most common reason a file that clears every other placement fails specifically there, especially when creative is exported once at a lower bitrate to save file size and then reused across every platform without adjustment. If a file clears technical spec but is rejected on creative review rather than a spec error, that's a policy issue, not a format one — check for on-screen text or logo placement, and confirm any spoken or on-screen language matches the marketplace the ad is running in.

Budget review time into a launch calendar rather than uploading creative the same day a flight is meant to start. Manual review is standard practice across this category of ad inventory, and a rejection discovered the morning of launch, with no buffer to fix and resubmit, turns a minor spec mismatch into a delayed campaign.

The common mistake

The mistake is treating "Amazon DSP video spec" as one universal standard and building a single file without checking platform-specific minimums, then discovering mid-campaign that Prime Video rejected a cut every other placement accepted without complaint. reMKTR builds every streaming creative package against the strictest applicable spec in the plan's actual platform mix from the start, rather than building to a lowest-common-denominator spec and fixing rejections one platform at a time after launch.