Go Ahead – Embed

For us, embedding video is the way to go. Uploading a training video into your elearning and running it from a normal server just isn’t the best option anymore.

I know it’s a popular way of doing things, but for us it’s the difference between an old Nokia phone and a smartphone. Yes, the Nokia had a great battery life, but I don’t know anyone who’d give up their smartphone.

What is embedding a video?

You know when you see a YouTube video on a webpage, like the one on the right, that’s been embedded.

The video files sit on YouTube servers and, I like to think of it this way, a little window is opened on the webpage, and the video is shown in the window. It’s probably not an accurate description in terms of what actually happens, but it works for me.

Why use embedding?

One of the biggest advantages is the way videos are delivered. Instead of one large file being sent to everyone who views the video regardless of whether they’re watching on a 4g phone or a superfast broadband speed, the best version for the device and connection is delivered. You can find out more about this here in a video we made about adaptive streaming.

Another huge advantage is that you can add captions for people with hearing loss. Captions can also help someone if English isn’t their first language, or if they don’t have headphones and are working in an office. Furthermore, it’s really easy to add captions in different languages. For example, our Data Protection Today video has captions in 17 different languages – have a look.

As always there are advances being made in technology, and video is one area where improvements are being made all the time. Now we can add ‘chapters’ or ‘bookmarks’ to videos which means you can select these and jump to sections in the video. Have a look at this video on YouTube about Fraud and Social Engineering https://youtu.be/NMHxFLWF75w . It’s quite long, but the sections are listed in description to you can jump to the part you’re interested in.

How do you embed a video?

All you have to do to embed the video is to copy a piece of code, then paste it into whatever software you’re using.

Sometimes you paste this into an HTML text editor, sometimes there’s a special ‘box’ for you to paste it into, like the one in Storyline below.

What about PowerPoint?

 You can embed videos in PowerPoint, but you don’t need the embed code, you use the link to the video.

If you need to, you can usually extract the source link from the embed code – highlighted here in blue.

On YouTube you can simply use the share link.

The embed code mainly has information about the ‘window’ it’s going to play in, which controls are available, and a link to the source file.

And that’s abut all there is to it. Look for the embed icon in your software or search ‘software you’re using + embed video’ and you should see simple instructions.

Here are some embed codes you can play around with – just roll your cursor over the code and a box will show saying ‘Copy to Clipboard’ click that and the code’s in your clipboard. This means you can paste is anywhere you want.

Have a go.

Data Protection – have a look at the captions (open the ‘settings’/cog icon)

Effective Listening

Internet of Things

You can find links to all our YouTube (demonstration versions) on our Resources Page.

You can also embed directly from YouTube. Just choose ‘Share’ below the video, the look for the embed < > icon.

Let me know how you get on in the comments below.