HTML Video Tag Generator

It is possible (and relatively easy) to publish your own videos.

You can avoid presenting YouTube ads to your site visitors and YouTube's distracting or competing video recommendations. Other video-upload sites and their business requirements and restrictions also can be avoided.

The secret is the HTML video tag. The tag is put into your own web page. And, yes, you can do it in WordPress.

It takes 3 steps.

Upload your video to your server and make a note of its URL. (It needs to be an MP4 video to play reliably on all popular browsers.)
Generate an HTML video tag. (The generator is further below in this article.)
Paste the generated HTML video tag into your web page.

For WordPress users: Open a "Custom HTML" block and paste the generated video tag into it.

That's it. You're good to go.

You are now showing your own video on your own web page from your own server. In other words, you have full control.

The HTML video tag generator gives you these options:

Automatically play the video when the web page is loaded. (Not all browsers will comply.)
Start the video muted. (Users must raise the volume before sound is heard.)
Show video controls (start, stop, volume, etc).
Publish a poster image to display until the video is played. (Default is a browser-selected image from the video itself.)

HTML `video` Tag Generator

The first field (video URL) is required. The rest are optional.

URL of the MP4 (*.mp4) video file.

Automatically play the video when the web page is loaded. (Not all browsers will comply.)

Start the video muted. (Users must raise the volume before sound is heard.)

Show video controls (start, stop, volume, etc).

Width (any valid CSS width value).

Height (any valid CSS height value).

URL of poster image file (*.jpg, *.jpeg, *.png, or *.gif).

(Generated HTML video tag will be below the button.)

Paste generated code into web page where video is to be published.

As the generator says, paste the generated HTML video tag into your web page to make your video available. If you wish, you can paste it into a test web page, first, to see if it works the way you want it to.

If you prefer to construct your video tag yourself, Videos From Your Website has how−to information.

HTML video tag serves your video from your website without interacting with an external video depository or delivery service.

Your Videos Published On Your Website lists other articles related to publishing videos with the video tag.

(This article first appeared with an issue of the Possibilities newsletter.)

Will Bontrager

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