How to embed a video in your WordPress.com-hosted blog

Posted on by Romy C

I didn’t realize that embedding a video in a WordPress.com-hosted blog is so easy until I tried it. I guess my initial impression of not being able to install any plugin in my WP-hosted blog was mentally blocking me from even trying it.

In my company’s self-hosted WP sites, we have to install plugins to add video embedding functionalities.

Actually, I just accidentally hit the Add Video icon when adding a new post.  When pressed, the icon popped up a new window displaying the familiar (to me, anyway) shortcodes in embedding YouTube and Google videos.

Wow! I exclaimed. So, these video-embedding plugins are already built into my blog. Excitedly I searched YouTube for a test video clip which I could embed here. And I have this video titled “Sydney Sites” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qY3pP1ARg which I am using here for the same reason that I want to help promote Sydney.

So, how do you embed a video? Here are the steps:

1. When in Add New / Edit Post mode, click on the Add Video icon to open an Add Video window.

2. Select the URL tab. On the Video URL, enter the video URL.

3. Click the Insert into Post button.

The video shortcode with the entered URL is generated and entered onto your post. The URL without the space after [ and before ] looks like this for a YouTube embedded video.

[ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qY3pP1ARg ]

Here is the video generated by the above steps:

How do you resize the video?

Just add the parameter &w= (w for width) and &h= (h for, you guessed it, height) to the shortcode like:

[ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qY3pP1ARg&w=600&h=425 ]

and you get a resized video like this:

or like this, if you want it smaller with w=200 and h=125:

There are tutorials found in WordPress.tv on how to embed YouTube videos. Search also “video embedding” in WordPress.com and you will find several posts where WP users narrate and share their experiences.

This is just one of them.

11 responses to “How to embed a video in your WordPress.com-hosted blog”

  1. Romy C.,
    I agree, it is pretty easy to add video to WordPress.com blogs, especially if they are on YouTube. However, I could not find a way to add videos from Vimeo and some other video services. I tried using the same format but it didn’t work for me.

    Thanks for the extra tip about resizing the video, that is one that I will certainly share with the Diigo group users.

    It is great to share resources with other WordPress.com users.

    Reply

    • I am using a plugin called viper’s video quicktags which allows vimeo and many other video formats. I have not been able to embed one that is not on one of those services yet, however (like on abc news).

      Reply

      • Thanks for dropping by, Robert. Like other plugins, video embed plugins are encoded to access the files of other websites via APIs. Plugin developers need to obtain an API from video-sharing hosts like vimeo, YouTube, Google Video, MySpaceTV, etc. in order for their plugins to work. An API is like an authorization or a license. Also, if those APIs are withdrawn or if the structure of the files in the video-sharing hosts has been changed and the plugins have not been upgraded to reflect the change, then the plugins will stop functioning. (Hope this makes sense. I am not a technical person, and just relying on my observations and experience as a web publisher.)

  2. I get alot of people coming to the forums asking how to embed youtube videos So I have bookmarked this article and will be referring them to your article. 🙂

    Reply

  3. Pingback: How to embed a Vimeo video « Working and WordPress-ing

  4. Pingback: How to embed a Vimeo video » Working and WordPress-ing

  5. Pingback: How to embed a Vimeo video

Leave a comment