Smart Youtube is a WordPress Video plugin that allows you to easily insert videos/playlists into your post, comments and in your RSS feed. The plugin is designed to be small and fast and not use any external resources.
Smart Youtube is one of the most popular WordPress plugins, with more than 1,000,000 downloads.
From version 4.0 Smart Youtube changed the name to Smart Youtube PRO and now also supports playback of Youtube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Liveleak and Facebook high quality videos, works on iPhone&iPad, produces xHTML valid code (unlike YouTube embed code), allows you to view videos in fullscreen, has robust widget support and much more.
The videos will be embedded in your RSS feed as well, and if this is not support by the reader you can choose to have video link and/or video preview screenshot displayed instead.
Main Features
- Easily embeds YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Liveleak and Facebook videos (normal/HD mode)
- Works on iPhone, iPad and iPod
- Embed YouTube playlist (normal/HD)
- Supports latest high quality video protocols (360p and HD quality 720p)
- Allows full YouTube customization (colors, border, size, full screen...)
- Supports video deep linking (starting at desired point with &start=time parameter)
- Supports migrated blogs from WordPress.com
- Supports migration from other Youtube plugins such as wp-youtube
- Extract video thumbnails in your archive/category posts
- Provides a sidebar widget for videos as well
- Produces xHTML valid code
- Very fast and light, no extra scripts needed
Example
You can discuss all plugin related issues in the wordpress plugin forums.
Screenshot
Download
Installation & Usage
- Upload the whole plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
- Go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin.
- Use the Options page to change RSS feed options
- When you want to display Youtube video in your post, paste the video link with httpv:// (notice the 'v')
Example: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00000000
0000000 part is your video REF#
The video will be automatically embedded to your post in the proper way.
If you want to post a high/HD (DVD quality, 720p) quality video you would use httpvh:// ('vh' for video high resolution)
To embed a playlist use extension 'vp' (eg. httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=528026B4F7B34094)
To use video deep linking just add &start=time parameter at the end of url. For example httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWfksMD4PAg&start=30 will start the video 30 seconds in.
Additionally, you can set how do you want the video to be displayed in your RSS feed. Smart Youtube can show the preview image of the video (automatically grabbed from Youtube), the link to the video, or both. I recommend enabling only the preview image.
Vimeo
httpv://vimeo.com/27287078
Metacafe
httpvh://vww.metacafe.com/watch/7815470/harry_potter_and_the_deathly_hallows_dvd_interview/
Liveleak
httpv://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cad_1322822486
Changelog
= 4.0 =
* Major release
* Added support for Vimeo, Metacafe, Liveleak and Facebook videos
* Now parses http:// and httpv:// videos jsut the same
* Option to autoplay only the first video on the page
* Exctract Video thumbnails
* Show video is Colorbox
* New much better, sidebar Widget support
= 3.9.1 =
Support for WiziApp.
= 3.8 =
* Support for new IFRAME embed code
* Support for HD playlists (httpvhp)
* Support for new play formats (1280x745 & 960x745)
v3.5
- Changes to Iphone video embed
Extra
- Visit my other interesting WordPress Plugins.
- Looking for a WordPress Expert ?
965 Comments
Love the plugin, works great on my WPMU site as long as I'm using Firefox or IE.
But as soon as I switch over to Google Chrome, only the text of the URL with the added "v" shows up, not the video.
Anyone find a way to get this working?
Hey
nice plugin but i have a problem i'm using the latest version of WordPress and i'm unsing the Arthemia theme and there is a little problem .. the video is not shown on the home screen but when i open only this post the video is shown .. sry for my bad english but please help me!
I have the same problem as Lukas
Great Plugin. Thanks a lot!
Any chance someone knows how we can mod the youtube interface. Changing the colour is cool but the silver interface is kind of old.
thanks!
Vlad
Excellent plugin but I have the inset code sitting below the Youtube at http://meadowbank.biz/wordpress/.
I have just started with WordPress and love the ease of your youtube plugin. I suspect that the problem is one of versions. Hemmingway (the theme I used) is version 2 and the plugin advisor said there could be problems. Smart Youtube works with WordPress themes 2 and above? Is the plugin advisor based on the the version of WordPress (the latest) or theme or combination of both?
Thanks in advance,
Bruce
I am using firefox 3.5.5 and it shows the youtube video but when you try to play it, it gives this error.
Not Found
The requested URL /<span class= was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Is there a way to set different heights and widths for different videos? For instance, I want videos in posts to show up at a certain size, and videos on pages at a different size. Thanks!
Hello!
Thanks for amazing plugin. But I have a problem. When the plugin is activated I get "HTTP 500 - Internal Server Error .The server responded with an error page." after saving the pages. (not for posts.)
What can be the reason?
I'm having a slight problem in installing the Smart YouTube plug-in. I desperately would like to use it on my site. The WordPress template is PrimePress. When I copy the smallest width for sidebar and put code in plug-in, the whole thing goes up into a page created in the top tabs and is not going into the sidebar where I'm placing it. Can you suggest a fix for this problem?
Hi
Can you please make it show a random video amongst a list on the widget?
Thanks
S.K
Any chance you will be including support for YouTube XL style viewer in next or future release? Or is the support there already and I'm missing it?
Your plugins rock, Vlad. I couldn't live without Plugin Central!
It's some kind of JavaScript as soon as I figure it out I will include it.
Hello,
is there any way to make Smart Youtube work on a custom field? In some articles, I use a custom field for the YouTube-URL.
Bye,
Oliver
It's not supported out of the box but can be modded to support if that is what you ask.
I would also love this feature to be built in...how is this possible???
Hi
How to have multiple instances of smart-youtube widgets. Right now there is only one and it has been used as a widget in one sidebar. Since I have multiple widgeted areas, I want to use different videos in different widgets.
Please help.
Thanks
S.K
Congrats on 500-th comment on Smart Youtube plugin :)
It doesn't support multi widgets yet, but you can post several videos one after the other in the same widget (even insert html in between)
Hi Vlad,
How do I set it so that when I play the video I remain on my site as opposed to automatically being taken to the video's original location on YouTube.
Cheers,
Julian
Once again :) Great plugin in I would also like to be able to pause the video instead of linking to youtube!
Hi, how do I do in order to implement directly in a wordpress template with code and not by using widgets?
Thanks in advance
DP
Hi, Im having problems with the plugin and iPhone - it just wont work. Is there something I have overlooked?
Nice plugin. Is there any way to extract thumbnails for posts from youtube with this or any additional plugin?
Great plugin, just used it to solve problems on Steve Show Posse.
Is this plugin likely to be very future proof? I have no idea about how plugins work, but would hate WP ver. 10 to break it. How likely is it do you think that the plugin will always work?
Cheers,
Jon.
I'd say 0.1% chance of WordPress breaking it, and about 15% chance youtube breaking it (by changing embed rules in the future)
I think I can live with that. Are you likely to be maintain it for a few years yet?
I can't guarantee you for tomorrow let alone five years my friend :) I'd like to be able to.
Great plugin!
Just wondering: Is there any way to SUPPRESS THE THUMBNAILS OF RELATED VIDEOS that appear after an embedded video has finished playing?
Thanks in advance!
There is an option in the plugin to remove them, just look at the setup screen.
Ah! You're referring to the "Include Related Videos" radio button? I didn't connect that with the thumbnails at the end! Sorry to be slow on the uptake. And thanks!
How would I go about using this in any old web page with regular youtube links (without the httpv needed)?
Possible?
I've been attempting to learn preg_match and preg_replace but I can't get anything to work. It has become obvious I kinda suck. :P
Can you please make the plugin automaticly choose HD/HQ/SD? I mean, if the clip is available in HD, of course I want to embed it in HD, and second best is HQ :) Love the plugin by the way! Thank you!
I can't as I don't know the quality of video based only the URL of the video.
Hi, I have today used this great widget in WordPress, however I am trying to make it centre justify, does anyone know the coding to make it do this? And where would I put it? Also the background box would look much better if it extended to cover the complete previews. See where I have put the widget at http://www.motoringtoday.co.uk. Hope someone can help. Thanks
Paul
You can put html code into the widget as well something like
;)
hey guys i am making a tutorial site that i can store the videos on youtube privately and use what you have to put those movies from youtube on my website but this isnt working for me because i dont want them to be able to see this for the whole world because i am trying to make it a pay site is there any way around this now when you go to click the video it says this is a private video if you have been sent this video make sure you accept the senders friend request ????????? help please
very helpful plug-in for my wordpress page, thank you VERY much Vladimir !
Vladmir
Could I imbed this with your plugin...
Its a good talk
http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/analytics/archive/2009/10/23/bill-buxton-video-by-popular-demand.asp
Hi ^-^
I just installed this plugin...
very very very nice, thank you very much ^__^
i was wandering if there is a way to set per-video width and height...
i can't find any info about it..
so, i'd like to suggest an idea...
as you used &start=30 to set the start time of the video...
can't you use something like &width=xxx and &height=xxx to set width and height on a per-video basis?
(i just tried &start=10 on a casual youtube video (on youtube.com).. and it does nothing.. so i think that it's your plugin that parse that "&start" parameter...)
thank you and greetings :-)
(uh.. i was forgetting.. ehm... if there is way to put an option in the config page.. to disable the on-video-playing-click-link to the youtube page of that video.. i'd be very glad to have it :p =^-^=)