Introduction: Youtube Fake GIFs on an Instructable

By Robb's Webiste/Contact info
About: Robb was once an Artist-in-Residence at Autodesk's Pier 9. they went to Carnegie Mellon to study Art. they mostly do tangible artifacts that are often complex. they can be reached at www.robb.cc

Do you want moving pictures in your 'ible?

Do you hate making and optimizing animated gifs? Me too. Here is how to get a Giffy experience with youtube. Sort of like vine.

Further Reading/Sources:

Getting a embedded YouTube Video to Autoplay and Loop - StackOverflow

YouTube Player Parameters — Google

I've used this trick on a few of my Instructables, including:

Hamster Wheel Standing Desk and AlphaClamps

Step 1: Remove the Audio From Your Video

Unless you want to annoy the bejesus out of your audience, make sure your auto-start looping video is silent.

I use Premier Pro (Right click the sequence, Unlink Audio, Delete Audio, Export)

This takes forever and Premier is expensive and has a helluva learning curve.

Quicktime Pro 7 can do it, and is cheap.

Window Movie Maker can do it according to YouTube, but I don't have a PC.

Step 2: Go to Your Video, Get Embed Code

After uploading your silent video to YouTube, go to the URL and click the share button. Then click the Embed button.

The width of an instructable is about 600px. Click Custom Size, type 600 in the first box and let it fill in the second box. This saves you some math.
Every YouTube video has an ID. In the case of the video above, it is j7FioTdZaEk. They are case-sensitive. In order to make your video loop, you must add a playlist flag pointing to your video's ID. I don't understand why, but it is important.

Uncheck all of the boxes, noting how the <iframe> code changes. The text being appended to the "src" url are known as flags. & or "&" are used to separate flags. Flags can be put in any order, so long as there aren't any spaces. Some of the flags can be added with the checkboxes, others have to be typed by you. the =0 means off, while =1 means on.

  • VQ=HD720&
    • Forces the quality of the embed. In this case, 720p
  • autoplay=1
    • Tells the video to start automatically.
  • loop=1
    • tells the video to play again and again, but only works with a playlist flag as well.
  • playlist=j7FioTdZaEk
    • I think this tells the player to queue up the video multiple times. You must replace the ID above with the ID of your video.
  • modestbranding=1
    • reduces the aesthetic loudness of the youtube watermark
  • controls=0
    • hides the play/pause/scrubber
  • showinfo=0
    • hides the title and author