YouTube Archives

Where to find a List of all Clips you’ve made from YouTube Videos

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YouTube have recently introduced their new Clips Feature. These are quick and easy snippets that users can create from eligible videos, referencing a section of the original video. You can create a clip by using the little scissors icon underneath a video. When you’re done you’ll get a handy URL you can share, like this … Read more

How to extract a thumbnail from YouTube (in high-res without plugins)

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Sometimes I need access to my YouTube thumbnails, either because I’d like to update them or because I no longer have a local copy. Here are a few ways to achieve this. Thumbnails you’ve uploaded yourself If you have already uploaded a thumbnail to a video, you can download it again in YouTube Studio. Head … Read more

How to embed your latest YouTube Video with responsive CSS

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I’ve recently had to update the code that’s responsible for pulling in my latest YouTube upload on the front page. I had previously used a solution that uses the channel name rather than the channel ID. Apparently that API has stopped working and I had to find a workaround.

In addition to making it work again, I also wanted my embed to be responsive and look handsome on all screen sizes. The trouble is that regular iFrame embeds use a static size for the video (like 600×360 or 800×480), but being the future-proof thinking kind of guy that I am, I wondered if there was a way to make this dynamic. The “height=auto” trick didn’t work for me, but thankfully I came across a great piece of CSS that adds this feature.

Let me show you both parts to solving this puzzle.

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Getting Started with Streaming – An Overview

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I’ve been meaning to put this quick guide together, with helpful bits of equipment and software that you need to get started in the world of streaming. I also wanted to explain the principles in a not-too-technical way. Here’s what I’ve come up with! This guide includes some philosophy, general tips, some basic kit suggestions, as well as “extra credit” optionals with affiliated links to the products I’m talking about. I hope you get some information out of this list!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll try my best to help if I can.

Table of Contents

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How to get the URL to your next Live Stream on YouTube (stream now)

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YouTube’s Studio “forever Beta” interface is in a continuous state of disarray. At the time of writing, and since 2018, we’re seeing a partially upgraded interface with plenty of deep links into the older YouTube Classic experience. 2020 is almost half over, and YouTube have upgraded half of the Live Streaming experience (Events). However, the Stream Now option is still Classic, and as such has a few issues that won’t be fixed (until we see the rest of YouTube’s upgrade… at some point in the indeterminate future).

The issue that I sometimes have is to find the URL to my new Stream Now live stream. With events it’s not a problem, but Stream Live Classic will often show us the generic live URL to our channel (say https://youtube.com/TheWPguru/live) rather than a direct URL with an ID. It entirely depends on the channel. On some you’ll see this (generic):

where you’d really like to see this (direct ID):

The latter is preferred because you can start chatting with people before you go live, and you can give out this link before the event begins. Although the generic live URL will work, the event will not be accessible when you start streaming the next time.

Thankfully, there is a way to extract the correct direct URL from the new YouTube Studio interface, but it’s not entirely obvious. Here’s how to grab it:

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How YouTube trimmed my 3 hour video to a 6 second clip – Funny Fail Story

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I wanted to share a tragically funny YouTube story with you. It has to do with a copyright claim I’ve received on one of my recent Twitch streams, and a “helpful” tool YouTube offer to alleviate such a problem. Grab a coffee and prepare to be amused.

I was playing Cube Escape: Paradox on Twitch, and we really got into it. It’s an exciting TwinPeak-esque game with a very atmospheric soundtrack. In fact, the first part is free to play, and there’s a free movie you can watch too. Twitch only saves game broadcasts for up to 60 days, so I transfer them to YouTube for posterity, and to reach another audience at the same time. In fact, I upload my Twitch streams both to my Main Channel for a few weeks before making them unlisted, and also to my Gaming Channel for good. It’s a strategy that keeps my main channel tidy going forward.

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