Sillybean

Video

Uploading videos is much like uploading audio. You’ll be asked to fill in the four basic attributes: title, description, caption, and link URL. Inserting the file into the post results in a plain link to the video file. For most site owners, that will not be satisfactory. As a result, there are a number of plugins available that will replace your video file links with video player interfaces (usually Flash-based). My favorite is XHTML Video Embed, but you’ll find dozens in the Extend section of wordpress.org.

oEmbed

Embedding video from other sites is quite easy. As of version 2.9, WordPress supports the oEmbed standard. What this means is that you don’t have to paste the complicated HTML provided by sites such as YouTube. Instead, you can simply paste the URL of the video page into your post as plain text. If you turned on the oEmbed options in your Media Settings, try it out now! Grab a URL from YouTube, save your post (Figure 4-35), and view it. If everything is working as expected, your plain text URL should have been replaced with a video player, as shown in Figure 4-36.

Figure 4-35. Embedding a YouTube video is as easy as pasting the URL into your post.

OEmbed works with a number of video providers. See codex.wordpress.org/Embeds#oEmbed for a complete list. This page also contains instructions on adding other video providers, if your favorite is not already included.

Figure 4-36. The YouTube video embedded from the URL