HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 12.2
A YouTube video
embedded in a
web page.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Hosting Videos on
YouTube
You can upload your own videos to YouTube and embed them in your pages, too. Other
sites, like Vimeo
(http://vimeo.com/)
also offer free hosting for video. There are a num-
ber of advantages to hosting your videos on YouTube. For one thing, video files tend to
be rather large, and hosting them on YouTube means that you don't have to figure out a
place to put them. You also get to take advantage of YouTube's video player, which sup-
ports multiple quality levels and full-screen playback. It's used by millions of people and
is widely tested. There's are also YouTube applications for mobile platforms like Apple
iOS and Google Android, so YouTube videos can be viewed on them, whereas they can-
not be with other Flash players. As you'll see, another advantage is that it's easy to start
with YouTube. You just upload your video file, go to the new page for the video, and
then copy the embed code and paste it on your own site to get things working.
12
Another advantage of hosting your video on YouTube is that you can take advantage of
YouTube's audience in addition to the audience at your own website. When you upload a
video to YouTube and make it public, it shows up in search results and on the lists of
related videos when people watch other videos on the site. So in the end, using YouTube
for video hosting can lead more people to your website than hosting videos on your own.
The disadvantages of using YouTube are that you cede some control over your video and
how it is presented. The YouTube player works well, but it's obvious to your users that
it's the YouTube player. You may want to host the video yourself if you don't want them
to be distracted by YouTube, or if you want to use your own player.
