Video Thumbnail Issue - Old Embed Code versus iFrame

[SweetPotato]

Hi all

I have a longstanding issue which Ning have acknowledged but won't assign resources to sorting out (not their exact words but that is the gist).

When I embed videos from YouTube using the iFrame option then the thumbnail on the video page is the default Youtube logo thumbnail and in the activity feed it is the ugly Ning video thumbnail.

However, if I use the old embed code (flash) then the thumbnails are fine.

Here's what i mean

The videos in activity feed

The videos on the video page

Like I say, Ning know it is an issue but have said there are not enough people bothered by it for them to resolve it. So I guess my question is:

Is anyone else experiencing this and are they bothered by it?

Cheers

SP

[SweetPotato]

It's just using the video embed function on the video module. it's fine in blogs.

SP

[Sylvia Hysen]

Hate it! Please NING address this issue. It is ugly and unprofessional.

Video links without thumbnails is BORING. There shouldn't have to be an outrage for this to be corrected. What's up NING?

[Woody13]

yeah man im confused, too...  really ugly on the Main page etc !

[TJ @ jQueryHelp]

Hi SP,

I support your request to Ning to show YouTube thumbnails in all cases.

I can think of at least 3 ways to do this with jQuery code but none would be as efficient as if Ning did it themselves on their end.  It's easy to get a thumbnail image from YouTube - they are stored at this URL:

'http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/' + YouTubeVideoCode + '/default.jpg'

For example, the thumb for this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v4IPkENbwA is

http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/0v4IPkENbwA/default.jpg

So its possible to find the thumbnail from the code that shows the video.  I'm sure Ning will do this when they can.  They have a good priority system in place and they will get to this at the right time.  As a developer, I understand that you can't come out with every feature as soon as it's requested and you have to prioritize your time.  But I do support the call for this and I thank you, SP, for starting this thread!

One last thing, I don't think anyone would be interested, but there is a way to change that default YouTube thumbnail to another image.  I did it on my site.  Replaced that YouTube img with my Tiger pic :-)  http://jqueryhelp.ning.com/video

Best wishes to all!

"TJ"

[SweetPotato]

Thanks TJ, ideally a Ning solution would be great. I don't think this is a 'feature' enhancement so much as a bug, after all , as you say, they know how to do it. Imagine if you ran a video site with this? :-)

[solo]

YES SIR

[SweetPotato]

Muchas gracias, Señor Solo

[Ambroise]

Thank you for having initiated the discussion SP. This is a very old issue and it's really stupid to keep a bug so long.
To minimize the damage, I found the following trick: I gave explanations to members via the translation tool.
http://epanews.fr/main/language/edit?locale=fr_CA&q=You+can+paste+a+link+from+YouTube

But it does not really solve the issue, I quite agree ...

[SweetPotato]

Great tip. Let's hope ning make it redundant, in the best possible way :-)

[Troy D. Bertrand]

I enable the video features on my both networks and all videos added via the YouTube link (not embed code) shows up with thumbnails and they can be viewed from the activity feed or video section without having to go to the specific video page.

[Ambroise]

Here is the result on my network :
(my explanation was in french, here is an automatic translation)

[Kristy]

Agree!! Lending my support!!

Ning, please fix this. :-)