Nifty little trick: embed parts of a YouTube video
Written on 11th October 2008
10 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
You probably recognize the situation of wanting to embed a YouTube video that is interesting for ten seconds. If only it wouldn’t take five minutes before the video reaches that point. Alex Chitu from Google Operating System writes that YouTube’s embedded player has a parameter that lets you specify the number of seconds that should be skipped before starting to play the video.
Here’s how you should edit the code: append &start=[number of seconds from the start of the video] to both URLs. When you use this, you can, for instance, start the official Web 2.0 bubble burst video when the first girl is about to jump in the smashing pool.
There’s no permalink to a certain part of a video. The only way of getting there is clicking on a video that’s embedded with the right parameters. According to Philipp Lenssen, a generic wrapper site could be created for that purpose.
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By Paul van Veenendaal on Oct 11, 2008
Or just use http://splicd.com ;-)
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By KMatthews on Oct 11, 2008
Excellent tip – many thanks
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By Mircea Goia on Oct 11, 2008
Bitgravity implemented recently a technique like that to their High Definition delivery platform.
See http://demo.bitgravity.com/advanced (go to “H264 Virtual Video Clipping” and choose an interval time).
With their technology you can also have a permalink to the part of video which interests you.
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By Avatar on Oct 11, 2008
I just knew it would be you who would post the Cyprus Video. but what?. no Christina Five video?. you just lost a perfect chance for a justified shameless plug Ernst-Jan :P
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By Allan on Oct 12, 2008
Excellent tip. I’d like to be able to specify not only which second to start but also which second to end by. What do you think about that?
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that would be even better, but hey, this is a good start, right? ;-)
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By Paul van Veenendaal on Oct 26, 2008
Another neat little trick: Deep linking within YouTube videos.
To specify a point, append a tag to the end of your video link with the following syntax: “#t=1m45s” (via TC http://tinyurl.com/youtube-deep-linking)
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By Tony Whittaker on Jan 27, 2009
Great tip. Now, is there any way to do the following:
On a normal fullsize embed, when it has finished, it gives a choice of thumbnails of other ‘recommended videos’ which may or many not actually match the subject of my site, or be appropriate at all. I note that if I reduce the size of the embed a lot, this no longer happens – I just get a replay button. I would like to force it to only display a replay button even as a full-size embed.
Just wondering if this is possible?
Best wishes
Tony
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By Chris Najman on Jan 28, 2009
Just append: &rel=0 to the end of the YouTube Video ID and the related videos will not show
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By Tony on Jan 28, 2009
Thanks Chris, that is a very valuable tip. Couldn’t find it anywhere by googling!
Tony
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