ptg16476052Embedding Video the Simple Way 38714
Advantages and Disadvantages of Hosting Videos on External Sites
You can upload your own videos to YouTube and embed them in your pages, too. Other
sites, like Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/), also offer free hosting for video. There are a num-
ber of advantages to hosting your videos on an external site rather than on your own web
server. For one thing, video files tend to be rather large, and hosting them on YouTube or
Vimeo means that you don’t have to figure out a place to put them. You also get to take
advantage of their video player, which supports multiple quality levels and full-screen
playback. It’s used by millions of people and is widely tested. There are also applications
for mobile platforms like Apple iOS and Google Android, so videos can be viewed on
them, whereas they cannot be with other Flash players. As you’ll see, another advantage
is that it’s very easy to get started with YouTube or Vimeo. 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.
Another advantage of hosting your video on an external video site is that you can take
advantage of YouTube’s and Vimeo’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 or Vimeo for video hosting can lead more people to your website
than hosting videos on your own.
FIGURE 14.2
A YouTube video
embedded in a
web page.