Saturday, February 27, 2010

Presentation report: embedding video

Embedding video means to embed, or place, a video within the XHTML code of a web page.

Videos can be played “inline” or by a “helper”, depending on the XHTML element you use.

W3Schools.com is a good source to learn more embedding video:

When a video is included within a web page, it is called an inline video. If you plan to use inline videos in your web applications, please be aware that some people find inline videos annoying. Also, please note that some users might have turned off the inline video option in their browser.

Our best advice is to include inline videos only in web pages where the user expects to see a video. An example of this is a page, which opens after the user has clicked on a link to see a video.

A helper application is a program that can be launched by the browser to "help" play a video. Helper applications are also commonly referred to as plug-ins. Helper applications can be launched using the <embed> or the <object> tag. (http://www.w3schools.com/)

The purpose of the <embed> and <object> tags is to embed multimedia elements within a web page.

One great advantage of using a media player plug-in is you can allow some, or all, of the settings to be controlled by the user. Most of these plug-ins allow manual, or programmed, control over the volume settings and functions such as rewind, pause, stop and play.

According to htmlgoodies.com writer Scott Clark (2008), “the most commonly used method to embed video today is via a Flash player and a .flv file” (para. 1).

Other Adobe Flash file formats include .f4v, .f4p, .f4a, and .f4b.

With websites such as YouTube, embedding media has been simplified for web designers. Clark continues this point by writing:

Along comes YouTube ... and embedding a video onto a web page becomes as easy as cutting and pasting. When you visit a site that hosts videos, such as YouTube, you are presented with a video box on the page. You can watch the video directly on the page, or the Flash player allows you to view the video full screen, just by clicking a button on the player. As Borat would say..."VERY NICE!!" How much does it cost you to add a video from YouTube to your site? Nada--nothing. They provide the service, and they also provide the bandwidth, so the video is hosted on their servers and uses their bandwidth! Hard to beat a deal like that! (para 4).

Take a moment to find a video on YouTube that you want to embed into your blog. To the right of the actual video, there is a description. Under the description, you will find the form fields labeled URL and Embed. The embed code is already included for you to copy and paste like so:


Furthermore, here is what the actual code for the previous video above looks like.

<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0WhuikFY1
Pg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" 
value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" 
value="always"></param>

<embed src=http://www.youtube.com/v/0WhuikFY1
Pg&hl=en_US&fs=1&type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscr
iptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="
344"></embed></object>
YouTube also has a customize function you can utilize as well. Moreover, YouTube is a great user-friendly avenue to use when pertaining to embedding videos.


Clark, S. 2008. How to add a YouTube video to your web site. Retrieved from http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/web_graphics/article.php/3480061

W3Schools.com. (n.d.). Videos on a web site. Retrieved from http://www.w3schools.com/media/media_browservideos.asp

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