Tried embedding video into your Wordpress blog with dismal results?
There are several forum threads and videos discussing this problem. And there is one little trick that will solve your whole problem for you.
Embed YouTube and other videos into Wordpress
(I used a different service just to show that you can use this with any video sharing service out there!)
NEW! We just made a Visual Editor Toggle Wordpress plugin that makes it dead easy to toggle between editors so you don’t have to click over to users and manually change your advanced editor settings.
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{ 13 trackbacks }
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Tobey 05.01.07 at 8:51 am
Jack,
I’m interested in how you are setting up your screencasting. If I remember correctly…you are NOT using camtasia.
I really want to know what dimensions and format you save in before uploading to sites like youtube, veoh, grouper, etc.
Thanks,
Tobey
Jack Humphrey 05.01.07 at 10:08 am
Tobey,
Yep - I’m using Camtasia now. I choose the standard size for web when rendering video.
Can’t remember what that is off hand, but it’s the default I believe for Camtasia.
Brian Beshore 05.01.07 at 11:15 am
Thanks Jack!
I had just the experiences you were talking about, trying to embed code for video on my blog and I had given up. Great tip!
Kiran 06.18.07 at 4:38 pm
I am having all sorts of difficulties
My first days with Wordpress,never had issues with blogger!!
Well,in WP 2.2 hitting the code button and pasting the youtube link solves the purpose but it screws up the page layout BIG time ….
Should try Jack’s hack,hope it works
Tracy 06.23.07 at 12:47 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
ALEX NEWELL 08.29.07 at 9:11 am
Thanks a lot Jack, I just tried your easy trick and it worked a treat. I am soooooooooo pleased to have a video of Seth Godin in my blog! I’ve tried pasting code into the HTML box and it just screws the layout.
alex
Marilyn Sholin 10.10.07 at 5:09 am
Cool Man!! Thanks a bunch for doing this so easy and clearly!! Blogrolling you now on my site.
Marilyn
Mark 10.22.07 at 6:46 am
Thanks Jack for a great tip. I have been trying to figure out how to add video for some time.
So easy when you know how
thanks for aharing
Mark
nm 10.28.07 at 4:22 pm
Thank you, thank you, thankyou!!
I’ve spent one week trying to figure this out, i uploaded all sorts of plugin and this is the ONLY solution that worked for me.
many thanks - i will bookmark this site from now on.
Marie Forleo 12.25.07 at 9:22 am
Hi Jack! You FRICKIN’ ROCK!! I just wanted to thank you for this post - I found you by a google search. It’s Christmas morning and in less than 5 minutes you helped me post a fantastic Holiday Video on my blog before I head out to be with friends and family.
BLESS YOU for doing what you do and for making it so fun and easy.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you
Warmest,
Marie
Dr bobbi Anne white 12.26.07 at 10:51 am
Hi Jack Thanks for all the information. I am having difficulties with my permalinks, but I did follow your advice on trackbacking. I customized my permalinks to
/%category%/%postname%/ and even the default doesn’t work. Can you advise?
On the video thing, I found a nice little website zimbio.com that allows you to to embed the video and paste it in a widget. You can manually add another video on their site and it will update on your page by RSS. You can see it here
http://www.drbobbiannewhite.com/synastrology
Bobbi
Jack Humphrey 12.26.07 at 11:01 am
Bobbi,
Thanks for the Zimbio example. Once you clicked the radio button for Custom and put the code, which is correct, above, did you remember to hit the Update button in the top right of the screen to save the settings?
Otherwise the problem is definitely your .htaccess file needs to be manually updated according to the instructions which should appear at the bottom of that same admin page.
You will need to find your htaccess page through FTP, open it to edit, and drop in the code Wordpress gives you at the bottom of the permalinks configuration page after you click on update settings button.
That will do the trick!
shane 01.03.08 at 9:09 am
Hey Jack!!
Long time Lurker, your blog is a good lurking blog. Ok bad pun. Jack i’ve been trawling the web for weeks trying to figure how on earth to embedd camtasia videos and flash videos on my blog. I dont have the problems of embedding youtube videos or video clips to my wordpress blog. I frankly don’t understand why it is a problem none the less my problems still go on. I’m trying to figure out how to upload and post camtasia videos so we can share our videos of the mini me with our over seas family without having to post them on youtube. I was hoping someone in your corner of the web-o-sphere might have an answer to this, if you click through to my name you’ll wind up on my blog, please do post your ideas on this in the comment form, the family will be grateful and I can stop pulling my hair out and throwing hissy fits.
Cheers and Beers
Shane
Jack Humphrey 01.03.08 at 1:17 pm
Shane - I am working on this now and will have something up soon on this process. Think I found the solution without all the acrobatics people are describing on other blogs.
shane 01.11.08 at 5:21 am
Hey jack, thanks for responding!!
I’d be interested to see what you have come up with.
I think I more or less figured it out. It seems like using xinha for wordpress is munging it up a bit. Which is too bad really because I like the xinha plug-in for formatting my posts. Might have to switch it off. The video doesnt play when I click the start arrow. OR maybe I just havent totally figured it out yet.
Suppose you could give me an idea as to what text editor plug-ins you use or don’t use?
I think Im half the way there with this.
Thanks in advance Jack
Cheers and Beers
Shane
keener_marc 01.20.08 at 7:53 am
I’m searching for help with embedding youtube into my blog. I am glad I came to it after all the sorts of issues discussed in the above posts, but I have a concern maybe someone can enlighten me about.
I embed videos I show in my classroom but what I don’t like is that once the video has finished playing, “related videos” are shown in a bar along the bottom that people (students) can scroll through. When I link a video, that’s all I want. I don’t want the video posted where noone cared to put a title to it so it gathers in the pool of related videos waiting to be attached to my blog… like the female body builder wearing a headband for a bra and about as much for her bottoms. On an educational blog, I feel irresponsible even linking videos when I cannot control what is made available to them through my link.
Any way to embed the video and exclude the “related videos” that come as a result? They’re not always bad, at times they are actually “related” but more often than not, it’s the stuff I don’t want on there.
Ideas?
Jack Humphrey 01.20.08 at 10:04 am
Marc,
That’s the price we pay for streaming videos from YouTube for free. If you have to lock down your videos with no chance of something bad showing up, you really can’t use YouTube.
Even if another video service doesn’t do it exactly that way, by using any video player from a free video site you are opening up a gateway to videos you don’t want students watching because you can always click somewhere on those players to get to the site and more content.
I would look into a streaming service if you want to protect students 100%. At least it won’t be on your watch that they accessed potentially bad content.
Any reputable streaming service will do.
Jack Humphrey 01.20.08 at 10:08 am
Shane,
When dealing with any kind of code, like video embed code, I don’t use any editors at all. I just turn the advanced wysiwyg off completely. The xingha thing probably uses the same kind of stuff the advanced editor does and it is breaking video embed code the same way.
The pic of the video shows but it doesn’t play.
Best thing is to learn enough about the html tags you need for posting to live without advanced editors of any kind until Wordpress figures out what the hell they are doing on this issue.
Shane 01.20.08 at 5:35 pm
Hey jack, thanks for the obvious!!!
I kind of figured that xinha was munging the html I admit I had forgotten to switch off the wsywig. Gonna go do that and see what the happs with that is.,…
I was over at problogger today he has a vid feature on his front page (nice touch) so I opened up his source looke like he’s blip.tv. I was hoping he’d have some means of doing this. I’m guessing not.
Well looks like I’m back to square zero on this thanks for the help though I do appreciate it
Cheers and Beers
shane
walt 02.12.08 at 8:21 am
Jack
How do I upload a video I saved to my hard drive to my blog?
Jack Humphrey 02.12.08 at 9:14 am
Walt,
I wouldn’t recommend it. There are lots of problems you have to address and it’s time and sweat you won’t want to spend. Not to mention the drain on your server resources.
Did you notice that I upload ALL my videos to YouTube and use THEM to stream? It’s a free video streaming service! Not only that but you get more exposure for your videos putting them there and on the other video sites.
You could use Revver.com if you want to have ads you get paid on in your videos.
Bottom line: I wouldn’t serve video from your hosting. Harder to get it into your blog posts, time consuming, resource intensive,etc.
The Anti Hype 02.14.08 at 9:36 am
Jack, I’ve been struggling with this for months. Everything looked OK, I’d do a minor edit and the whole page was screwed up. This solves the mystery. Thanks.
Does this also apply to using any embedding code - like a Scribd article for example. I have the same issues with page format when doing so I’m guessing the WYSIWYG is the culprit here also?
The Anti Hype’s last blog post..Social Marketing Reveals The Cheats & Scammers
David Bryson 02.29.08 at 9:02 am
Hi Jack,
Thanks for this blog it looks like a tremendous help to a lot of people. I’m a rank amatuer when it comes to this stuff and it seems like everybody in the free world can upload a video to You Tube except for me. If you do respond please do it in the simplest terms.
I have rendered an 8 min project in the .wmv format, I went to upload it to You Tube last night. It said Video uploading was successful, I thought finally it happenned. I went to play it today and it says video unavailable. Once it is “uploaded successfully” is there anything more that I have to do? Do I have to embed the code for the video to be viewable and if so how do I do that? I’m very frustrated by this point and I thank you in advance for your time and expertise.
Sincerely,
David
Jack Humphrey 02.29.08 at 11:40 am
David,
You did it right man. From what you’ve said it should have been available this today. All I can say is try again - I’ve had to do that many times as well. If it happens again you might try their support although I’ve heard it is miserably slow to non existent.
Jack
Mark Riffey 03.21.08 at 9:02 pm
Fly Fishing Colorado 04.24.08 at 8:50 pm
4/24
Jack,
For those WordPress users not using Deans FCK editor for wordpress that is a nice solution. But Dean’s FCK editor allows for direct input of the embed code into the source code and away you go. You can edit the post later without messing everything up. I think you can use the insert image button to input the embed code too. http://www.deanlee.cn/wordpress/fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin/ Great wysiswyg editor.
Deans Permalinks Migration plugin is also great for managing any changes in your pemalink structure
Marshall, Editor
http://www.fly-fishing-colorado.com/wordpress/
http://www.deanlee.cn/wordpress/permalinks-migration-plugin/
Junior 05.15.08 at 2:58 am
Thanks for the information i was looking for a plugin just like this for along time.
Junior’s last blog post..Google Adsense Profits Mixed In With Affiliate Marketing
HeidifromSavory.tv 09.28.08 at 8:18 pm
I have a wordpress.com video blog, which I was planning to switch to wordpress.org. Basically every single post is text along with a video. Would working in this simple mode all of the time be prohibitive in any way?
(Excuse me for my lack of knowledge for wordpress.org software. )
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