Embed Private Video - A YouTube Story

Posted on 03/28/2007 by Buck
9 Comments

Update: This no longer works. I guess it was a fluke it worked when we originally set it up, or it was a bug, but unfortunately, this is no longer doable. Disregard post.

Recently, a client expressed a desire to publish video on their site. Of course, we recommended publishing to a video service such as Google Video, YouTube or JumpCut, then embedding into their site, so they wouldn't have to concern themselves with costly bandwidth or storage issues. Not to mention their video would be exposed to the massive audience those sites have already cultivated.

One hitch though. The client didn't want the public at large to be able to stumble upon these videos. Now, no sensitive data is in the videos; no trade secrets, upcoming product launches or anything of that nature. Just some legal CYA cautiousness.

We thought that would rule out any free video sharing service since sharing your video seemed a fundamental part of the arrangement. You add your video to their service, adding to the growing content and popularity of their site, while you get the benefit of embedding it wherever/however you wish.

To be sure though, we thought we'd try this scenario:

Upload the video to YouTube
Set the video as private (not ready to share)
Embed in a Web site

To our surprise, the video displayed in the page. Our initial thought was that once the embed called YouTube, the video was switched back to public. A quick click of the YouTube logo in the video showed that this wasn't the case.

Our second thought was that we were logged in to the relevant YouTube account so the video was only displaying because we were the account that uploaded it. We logged out, it worked. We went to multiple machines, it still worked.

What a pleasant surprise. For the price of a small logo in the corner of your video you can offload all of your video requirements to YouTube without sharing your video with the public internet if you so wish. Cool.

Comments

Posted by dAniel hAhler on April 10, 2007

The video screenshot shows up, but it stalls at "Loading..." after clicking Play. At least currently.

Posted by Buck on April 12, 2007

It works now. Must have been a YouTube hiccup.

Posted by checker on June 05, 2007

nope, youtube says, it won't work that way..

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=56109&topic=10519

Posted by Motiono on June 25, 2007

Very interesting, perhaps the embed code should be hidden if the video is set to be private, there are other video sharing sites like youtube such as "motiono" here take a look at this video : motiono

Posted by Motiono.Com on July 06, 2007

Most video sharing sites nowadays give you the ability to set your video as "private" this is something you can do if you do not want yout video to be exposed to the mass audience, however most people on the other hand publish their videos on Jumpcut, Youtube, Metacafe, UncutVideo and even on Motiono.Com just to have it exposed to the mass audience, perhaps in a sense that is the whole point of sharing videos.

Posted by Keith on September 05, 2007

FYI all... I was able to view a private video in Firefox but not in IE 6. I got the loading message forever in IE. Weird.

Posted by Diana on December 16, 2007

I've been trying to do exactly what the above-mentioned client wanted. When I log into my blog and click on the youtube image, my video starts playing, but when my friends check my blog, it just says "the video is no longer available".

Does this mean that the only way I can embed and share my video in my blog is if ANYONE can view it? If that's the case, that creates a rather frustrating situation. I just want my friends on my blog to see it, and no one else. I don't want them to sign up or do anything besides go on my blog and click on the image. Is that really impossible?

Posted by Sprog on January 23, 2008

I tried this myself recently and had the same problem I have with your example. The video says that it is no longer available.

Posted by Trent on March 01, 2008

The video will stay as "loading" or you are no longer be able to view the video. If the video is marked as private, you have to be logged into youtube and be on the share list to see the video. I embed all my private videos and unless you are logged in, no one can see them. Works 100% of the time :)