Webseries Hints, Volume 2 - Understanding Embed

November 17, 2011 | David

It's not enough to create great stuff anymore. You've got to understand at least a little about how web distribution works.

In a recent discussion on the IAWTV Facebook page, a few of us talked about embedding video, and how a broken embed (specifically, one malformed as a result of an incomplete copy & paste) can mean serious trouble for a creator trying to display his or her work. My assertion was this: creators/producers of web content should learn how to properly share and embed their videos. It’s not really enough just to make stuff anymore - we have to understand some of the technical trappings around delivery, or at least have someone on our teams who does.

In response, one of the other creators asked, “what should one do to ensure proper embeds and such?” I thought my answer might be worth sharing here.

Generally, I believe creators/producers of webseries should understand the embed model of at least their primary distribution point. To do so is pretty simple with only a little bit of technical understanding:

1) Go to one of your videos, click the “share” or “embed” link, find the embed code, copy it, and paste it into a text document.
2) Then, do the same with a second video.
3) Compare the two. Where are they exactly the same? That’s the structure. Where are they different? That’s the unique stuff that identifies this particular video.
4) Do the same with a third video and check your assumptions from #3.

Once you’ve done that, every time you copy and paste an embed or send it somewhere, you can do a quick visual inspection of that embed to make certain it’s fully intact. Every once in a while you’ll see the embed structure change, which means you need to do the above again to catch up to whatever architecture change was employed.

Or, if you don’t want to go so far as to try to understand the embed process (I really think you should, but understand if you don’t wanna), always, always double-check. If you paste your embed code somewhere, take a hard look at the beginning and end of the code, and then go back to the video sharing page and look at the beginning and end - are the beginnings and ends identical? Then what’s between them is likely intact as well.

You don’t have to become a technical wizard or memorize a lot of stuff. But sharing your video is important, and getting that video intact to other people for situations like award submissions or portfolio sharing is important. At the very least, being able to tell the difference between a complete copy & paste and a mistaken copy & paste may mean the difference between people seeing your video, and seeing nothing at all.