How To Embed A YouTube Video Starting At A Specific Spot
Sometimes I only want to link to a specific spot of a YouTube video. For example, on Starling Travel, I was talking about our magical encounter with fireflies in Oklahoma and I needed a video showing what I meant. I found an educational video, but the real firefly action didn’t start until the 1:38 mark. I didn’t want my readers to slog through the whole opening education, so I created an embedded video that started in the correct spot like this:
Here’s how I did it.
Firstly, Google has made embedding a YouTube video is much easier than it used to be. YouTube will create the embed code for you if you click the Share and Embed buttons.
You can easily edit the width of the video, copy and paste it into your blog or website. Adding the command that starts the video at the 1:38 mark, however requires a little tweaking. Look at the way this embed command is different than the one YouTube gave me.
Did you notice the #t1m38s that was added right after the link to the video? That is how you start the video at the specific spot. The 1m38s indicates the minute mark when the video will start.
You can also do this with links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8yK4dsOQLLo#t=98s
That link will open up the video at the exact spot where the fireflies start getting interesting. The way you create it is to right click on the video when it is paused at the spot you want and choose “Copy video URL at current time.” That will give you a URL that easily links to EXACTLY were you want the video to start.
The next time you want to link to or embed a video that has WAY too much introduction, here is a handy way to start the video EXACTLY when the video gets good.