• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, December 15, 2016

In an attempt to combat latency and improve transparency both for consumers and publishers, ad-tech firm AppNexus, on Thursday announced the launch of an open source pre-bid video header bidding capability for publishers. AppNexus said its PreBid Video”product will enable video publishers to obtain the best market price for their video inventory.

AppNexus said that unlike other video header bidding solutions in the market, its PreBid Video is designed to support multiple video players, video ad servers, and demand sources. The technology is specifically designed to reduce latency by running transparent auctions asynchronously on page load, so that video demand can be ready by the time a consumer clicks “play” in the video player.

AppNexus stressed that PreBid Video gives video publishers the same monetization benefits as header bidding for display. There are benefits to working with an open pre-bid video solution, according to Eric Hoffert, SVP, Video Technology, AppNexus. First, the open source community can easily add new video functionality and priority code fixes, second, the solution is customizable so developers can build various features for video players, video ad servers, and demand adapters, and third,  the open source code, itself, is available to anyone which enables publishers to know that video demand sources are treated equally, Hoffert told Real-Time Daily via email. 

AppNexus’ video header bidding technology is available in beta on GitHub, including the prebid.js source code, documentation on how to integrate with Google DoubleClick For Publishers’ video ad server, and code samples for a number of popular video players and solutions including video.js, JW Player, Brightcove, Kaltura, and Ooyala.

The solution supports in-stream video for pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ad units. PreBid Video is currently integrated with the AppNexus Video SSP (supply-side platform), which consists of demand from hundreds of global video buyers and bidders, with adaptors planned for additional demand partners.