How to Embed a Video Into Instructables

It's super easy for Google video, Yahoo! video, Metacafe, Brightcove, Revver, Blip.tv, and YouTube!

Put the URL of the video into our Video function inside some square brackets like this:

[[Video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woxc2eIedlM) ]]

The video will appear in the text section of your Instructable's step. You can adjust the size of the video by doing this:

[[Video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woxc2eIedlM, {width:500, height:400} ) ]]

You can also use the tool bar above most text boxes. Click the video button and drop in the URL of the video. Use the URL that takes you to the actual page on the video site with your video, not any special "embed this" URL. We'll take care of all the processing!

**Check out step 2 to see how you can get the correct embed for Blip.tv - the process is a little less intuitive than with YouTube, but it's still pretty simple.**

Step 1: The Video

Here, I embedded the video from the 1D Accelerometer by intoon

Example:

[[Video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woxc2eIedlM, {width:500, height:400})]]

Display:

And, here I embedded the video from the 3D chocolate printer by saul

UPDATE 5/14/07: Yahoo Video has changed, and is slightly less easy to embed.

To include a yahoo video, you'll need to compose a URL. This is done by taking the first part of the yahoo video URL

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=

and appending the vid, which is not the same vid found in the original URL. That will not function externally. To find the real vid, you need to copy out the embed code, found below the video. In this case, it looks like this

<embed src=&aposhttp://us.i1.yimg.com/cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/player/media/swf/FLVVideoSolo.swf&aposflashvars=&aposid=598437&emailUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.yahoo.com%2Futil%2Fmail%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26vid%3D54937&imUrl=http%253A%252F%252Fvideo.yahoo.com%252Fvideo%252Fplay%253Fei%253DUTF-8%2526vid%253D54937&imTitle=Lego%2Bchocolate%2Bprinter&searchUrl=http://video.yahoo.com/video/search?p=&profileUrl=http://video.yahoo.com/video/profile?yid=&creatorValue=ZXJpY2p3aWxoZWxt&vid=54937&apos type=&aposapplication/x-shockwave-flash&apos width=&apos425&apos height=&apos350&apos></embed>

The real vid is found after the text "flashvars='id=", or in this case 598437. Add that to the back of the URL to get:

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=598437

and then use the video embed like normal. In this case we have

[[Video(http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=598437)]]

Here I embed some video from Google video

[[Video(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1300191479870868157&q=how+to+cut+wood, {width:400, height:300})]]

Here I embed aMetacafe video,

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/445498/robotic_beer_launching_refrigerator/

[[Video(http://www.metacafe.com/watch/445498/robotic_beer_launching_refrigerator, {width:400, height:300})]]

Embedding a video from Brightcove is really easy to do as well. You just take the link that Brightcove gives you when you click on "link directly to this video" and paste it into the input video bar on instructables.

Here is the link for the "Twilight Zone" Lighter Trick on InstructablesTV.

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=494918786

If I put that same text into the video bar I get the following video:

Step 2: Embed a Video From Blip.tv

To embed a video from blip.tv, first upload a video to you blip account. Blip.tv automatically creates a flash version of any video you upload. The conversion can sometimes take a minute, so wait until it finishes or else you won't be able to embed the correct code.

Once you have a .flv version of your video available, click on the "share" button below your video. A windows will open up in the tab below. Select "MySpace" from "Where do you want to put the video."

Scroll down to where it says "Copy the HTML below to paste into MySpace".

The embed is the long line of text that starts immediately after the letters:

src="

Copy everything after the first quotation mark including, but not beyond the extension:

.flv 

So Blip.tv gives you the entire embed of:

<embed wmode="transparent" src="http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/blipplayer.swf?autoStart=false&file=
http://blip.tv/file/get/InstructablesTV-CanKnifeOpen517.flv%3Fsource
%3D3" quality="high" width="320" height="240" name="movie"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"pluginspage=
"http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>

but the part that the instructable needs is only:

http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/blipplayer.swf?autoStart=false
&file=http://blip.tv/file/get/InstructablesTV-CanKnifeOpen517.flv

If you paste that text into the video field on instructables, ie, this:

[[Video(http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/blipplayer.swf?autoStart=false&file=http://blip.tv/file/get/InstructablesTV-CanKnifeOpen517.flv, {width:320, height:240})]]

• note, there should be no line breaks in the above code, so if you just copy & paste, make sure it is all on one line without any spaces.

you should get a nice flash version of the player and video like this.

Step 3: Embed a Video From Revver.com

Embedding a video from Revver requires a bit of URL hacking, but it's possible.

First, go to the the appropriate video page, and select "Grab Code". Then under format, choose "Flash Embed" and copy out the text that appears in the text box above.

In this case, we get:

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash"src="http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf"pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" scale="noScale" salign="TL"bgcolor="#000000" flashvars="mediaId=218941&affiliateId=0&allowFullScreen=true"allowfullscreen="true" height="392" width="480"></embed>

What we need to do from this is re-create an flash embedded url. So we'll take the link after "src", which is:

http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf

and append a question mark and the mediaId, which in this case is 218941, resulting in:

http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=218941

Now we need to trick Instructables into thinking this is a flash video, so we'll take the link above, and ad a "&.swf" to it, resulting in:

http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=218941&.swf

Then one can use our normal video dimensions, but I'd recommend Revver's default width and height, 480x392. The resulting code is:

[[Video(http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=218941&.swf, {width:480, height:392})]]

Which can be seen below:

Comments

[HowToEngineer]

I do not see most of the videos any more. Is this no longer up to date? This would be an incredible instructable to have up to date!

[yourcelf]

You can embed Vimeo videos in Instructables as well (I searched for a long time to find this).
1. Get the full URL for the Vimeo player -- click the "embed" link and find the URL that looks like:
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=......fullscreen=1

2. Add "&.swf" to the end to convince Instructables that it's a video.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=......fullscreen=1&.swf

3. Use the video tag as described above. The default size for Vimeo is {width:400, height:300}.

[Phil B]

I tried this and all sorts of other suggested methods with no success. I am going for a step-by-step with an embedded URL link to go to the video at Vimeo.

[babybayrs]

I tried to embed video in a step-by-step Instructables, by copying the Youtube video URL to the brackets, but it didn't seem to work. Can anybody see how I should do it over here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Tricolor-tortellini-filled-with-mushroom/

[MidnightMaker]

I found this Instructable. Tried it out on a new 'ible I'm busy with and it worked just fine: https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-embed-a-video-on-Instructables/

[babybayrs]

You are so kind to leave the link which does work. I just embedded a video in my latest instructables.
Thanks a lot!

[Lightning Thunder]

thanks

[james.mcglashan]

can there please be how to embed the jw player as this should work


<script type='text/javascript' src='swfobject.js'></script>

<div id='mediaspace'>This text will be replaced</div>

<script type='text/javascript'>
var so = new SWFObject('http://jamesm.com.au/player/player.swf','mpl','555','300','9');
so.addParam('allowfullscreen','true');
so.addParam('allowscriptaccess','always');
so.addParam('wmode','opaque');
so.addVariable('file','http://jamesm.com.au/player/play.xml');
so.write('mediaspace');
</script>

[Derin]

I think the video system works with all flash.I put CP as a test now.

[Plasmana]

I am having some problems, I cannot change the size of the you tube video, what did I do wrong?

[knex maddo]

how do you add your own one from windows movie maker? please reply A.S.A.P thanks

[xACIDITYx]

LOL! I loved that show. Thanks for the info, Eric.

[bluesman]

Hey, the metacafe videos don't appear embedded anymore!

What happened? Any ideas?

[unklstuart]

Any advice for embedding a video from Flickr?

[demer98]

Great site... hm, i'm kinda new....i need help please can anybody tell me how to add text on youtube video? thank's

[trebuchet03]

another test....

<font color="blue">This might be blue</font>

[trebuchet03]

@llama13

yes, you can do custom color ;)

<table border="0" bgcolor="black"><tr><td><img src="http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/Trebuchet03/P1020697Small.jpg" hspace="10px" vspace="10px"></td></tr><tr><td><font color="white">Yet another Mystery Machine</td></tr></table>

[Derin]

<font color="red">well well well written with blood</font>

[Derin]

<font color="red"> well well well written with blood </font>

[trebuchet03]

before I go any further.... let me know if you intended to use this feature this way... I like being optimistic... but as a webmaster, I would not want this because of stupid skiddies and other 'evil' purposes.