Use Video

Stanford Sites supports the ability to easily add videos from YouTube and Vimeo.

Add a video to a page

Text Area, Media with Caption, or Card paragraph types all support adding video via the Add Media button. To add a video, all you need is the URL to the video, which you can get by following the instructions below.

Add a video to your media library

You can also add a video to your site's media library for use later.

1. After selecting “Video”, you will be redirected to the “Add Video” page:

1. Enter the name of your video in the corresponding text field.
2. Enter the Video URL in the corresponding text field. You can copy the video URL from the address bar:

1. Click Save.

Policies and best practices

• Stanford University's accessibility policies require captioning on all videos.
• Stanford Sites does not allow uploading video files (.mov, .mp4, etc) into the media library. Streaming services (YouTube or Vimeo) are used to provide the best video experience for your site visitors. They also provide valuable analytics on video views.
• You may use multiple videos on a page, but keep in mind that this will increase your page load time and may create a negative experience for those using mobile devices or on low bandwidth. We do not recommend using more than six (6) videos per page.
• Stanford Sites does not support autoplay of videos for accessibility reasons.

Troubleshooting

Do not use the embed URL from YouTube or Vimeo (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/embed/UYyEmEDACgU) for the Video URL. The video uploader will not support those URLs. When you attempt to save you will get an error message: "The given URL does not match any known oEmbed providers."

Accessibility tips for videos

Most videos require captioning. 

You can use the W3C transcript checklist to see if your content requires transcripts and/or captions.

Learn more about captioning from the Office of Digital Accessibility

Captions

While the terms "captions" and "subtitles" are often used interchangeably, subtitles do not provide the same information and are designed for different purposes. Subtitles provide a text version of the dialogue only. Subtitles assume an audience can hear the audio but need the dialogue provided as text, too.

For video content with audio, ensure that synchronized captioning is available. While YouTube can auto-generate captions using voice recognition, these are typically not of sufficient quality to be considered equivalent.

Learn more about Captioning Text.

Transcripts

A transcript is the same word-for-word content as captions but presented separately from the video. It provides a text alternative to the audio presentation and is not synchronized with the audio timeline. A transcript should contain relevant speaker information to distinguish who is saying what information.

Transcripts are not required for videos. However, it's a good idea to include them as some people may not be able to watch the video (for example, if they have bandwidth issues) or may want to convert the text into another language or format.

The screenshot below is an example of one way to present an embedded video and transcript on a page.

View an example of an embedded video with a transcript