Video Killed

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One of the oddities of Blogger is, it will host video for you, but not audio. So you can vlog but not podcast. If you want Blogger to host audio, you have to give it a video track.

Of course it doesn't have to be much of a video track - you could use a slideshow of photos, a logo, or just a blank screen. But it's not very elegant to have a redundant non-video staring at you while your music, poetry or commentary plays. There should be some way to at least make the video window invisible, leaving just the playback bar - and there is.

When you upload your video to Blogger, it recodes what you send to flash format, and embeds a display window in your post. The HTML code looks something like this:

<object id="BLOG_video-41b6eee4fd64c73b" class="BLOG_video_class" contentid="41b6eee4fd64c73b" height="240" width="320"></object>

Unless you're pasting from the source code of another blog, in which case it'll look something like this:

<embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.blogger.com/img/videoplayer.swf?videoUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvp.video.google.com%2Fvideodownload%3Fversion%3D0%26secureurl%3DqAAAAOF-u9WtopylwZ9XHAqIS4Q8mMCKxx25CeJq8bZBiPr6Lw1nPt3Mzuy4dAHiTdzlJdTM7R5C4A8yULlJcCGk46syEW7Wkg_D7V8QgTWwr-HGf1tvwnESv5Uz2E9E7wL5Ce4fg3BdxWEVOmlQ1z-PDH480M4DbkLsn6npmDomUJiai-I7XKyv_b2OZ_QnsOVpAr_T0XVce-X10Sy6q7FESf6NIerYRfXjTmzBMH8TG0aC%26sigh%3D7BraJLEO2xG_ZgceHKNZLuRXVY0%26begin%3D0%26len%3D86400000%26docid%3D0&nogvlm=1&thumbnailUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2FThumbnailServer2%3Fapp%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D9c3e5d0d5c086378%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw320%26sigh%3DqlhWps1wzO-wxaMVRD9NQowWIKI&messagesUrl=video.google.com%2FFlashUiStrings.xlb%3Fframe%3Dflashstrings%26hl%3Den" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<a href="rtsp://rtsp-youtube.l.google.com/video.3gp?app=blogger&fmt=13&cid=9c3e5d0d5c086378" type="video/3gpp"><img width="320" height="266" alt="video" src="http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app=blogger&contentid=9c3e5d0d5c086378&offsetms=5000&itag=w320&sigh=qlhWps1wzO-wxaMVRD9NQowWIKI" class="BLOG_mobile_video_class" id="BLOG_mobile_video-9c3e5d0d5c086378"></a>

A bit daunting isn't it. This example is a fifteen second clip of a firework display, from the blog of David's Tangled Thoughts. Hi David, I hope you don't mind I've used code from your page as an example.

If you're pasting code like the latter, you can edit out everything from "<a href="rtsp" onwards, and everything from &nogvlm=1& until ""</embed>", leaving you with:

<embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.blogger.com/img/videoplayer.swf?videoUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvp.video.google.com%2Fvideodownload%3Fversion%3D0%26secureurl%3DqAAAAOF-u9WtopylwZ9XHAqIS4Q8mMCKxx25CeJq8bZBiPr6Lw1nPt3Mzuy4dAHiTdzlJdTM7R5C4A8yULlJcCGk46syEW7Wkg_D7V8QgTWwr-HGf1tvwnESv5Uz2E9E7wL5Ce4fg3BdxWEVOmlQ1z-PDH480M4DbkLsn6npmDomUJiai-I7XKyv_b2OZ_QnsOVpAr_T0XVce-X10Sy6q7FESf6NIerYRfXjTmzBMH8TG0aC%26sigh%3D7BraJLEO2xG_ZgceHKNZLuRXVY0%26begin%3D0%26len%3D86400000%26docid%3D0"</embed>

...and it'll work just fine. Either way, replace the "height" number with "27". That's it. Now your blank video won't display, and you're (kind of) podcasting from inside Blogger.

Here's my experiment in non-video, which is also an introduction to the drumkit I've been working on for the past week. Unfortunately, Blogger sound isn't great, and is only mono.

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You might (just possibly) want to do this with YouTube videos. Here's the embed code for a video chosen almost at random.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VSUX9byu6NY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VSUX9byu6NY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

...and here's the video. It's a killer.



It turns out you need almost none of the code. This snippet is all you absolutely need, though the video won't be resized, and there'll be no fullscreen option:

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VSUX9byu6NY&hl=en&fs=1"></embed>

To crop out the video window, leaving only the tracking bar underneath, put the width and height parameters back in, with the height set to 25. Personally, I prefer a width of 320. The code now looks like this:

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VSUX9byu6NY&hl=en&fs=1" width="320" height="25"></embed>

...and the clip now looks like this:


The video is still there, and still being streamed. It's just not being displayed.

One small detail - the volume icon still works, and you can mute playback, but the vertical slider you use to adjust the volume is now cropped out of view. So in effect, there's no volume control.

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You can perform similar surgery on MTVMusic.Com videos, turning this...

<embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtvmusic.com:18123" width="320" height="271" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashVars="dist=http://www.mtvmusic.com" allowFullScreen="true" AllowScriptAccess="never"></embed> <div style="margin:0; text-align:center; width:320px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:10px;"><a style="color:#000000;" href="http://www.mtvmusic.com/buggles">The Buggles</a> |<a style="color:#000000;" href="http://www.mtvmusic.com/">MTV Music</a></div>

...into this...

<embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtvmusic.com:18123" width="320" height="25"></embed>

...which gives you this:



Unfortunately it won't work on Daily Motion embed codes - it crops out the tracking bar. LiveVideo fails a little differently, and changing the size parameters changes the size of the whole box, including the playback controls.

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