YouTube Engineering and Developers Blog: 2009

Enrich your site with YouTube Direct

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Today we announced the launch of YouTube Direct, a new tool built on top of YouTube's public APIs that enables any developer to solicit video submissions on their website, powered by YouTube.

Users upload their videos directly on the developer's website, after which the developer can review the submissions and select the best ones to showcase. Since these videos live on YouTube, users are able to reach YouTube's large user base directly while also getting broader exposure and editorial validation for the videos they create.

Although YouTube Direct was originally created with our news partners in mind, we believe that other developers and website owners can benefit from it as well. To put YouTube Direct in the hands of as many developers as possible, we open sourced the bulk of the code and designed it to run on Google App Engine - Google's scalable hosting platform. This enables developers to easily deploy their own instance of the tool and take advantage of App Engine's scalability and low cost. The videos themselves are served from the same infrastructure that powers YouTube.com.

Visit YouTube Direct for Developers page to read more about it or go directly to the project page to download the code. As always, we'd love to hear your feedback on this new tool. Drop us a line in YouTube's Developer Forum.

New YouTube API Version Available for Testing

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

While we don't normally call out new releases of the Google Data YouTube API on this blog, we wanted to draw specific attention to the version that has just been pushed out to our staging servers. There are two specific changes that we'd like to give our developers and partners a chance to test before they go live. Both changes affect important areas of the API: ClientLogin authentication, and playback URLs in media:content entries.

We fully intend for the changes to be backwards compatible, and from the developer's perspective you should not have to change any code. But testing your code is always a best practice, so if you rely on ClientLogin or retrieving media playback URLs from the Google Data YouTube API, please repoint your code to http://stage.gdata.youtube.com and confirm functionality.

Any incompatibilities should be reported as soon as possible in our YouTube API Developer Forum. We expect to move the changes from the staging environment into production on November 17.

Final Decommission Notice for the Legacy YouTube API

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

It's been several years since we've released the Google Data-based YouTube API, and in that time we've been encouraging developers who used the legacy YouTube API to upgrade before we pull the metaphoric plug on that older version. At this point, all but a handful of holdouts have upgraded, and as of November 11, 2009, the legacy YouTube API will cease operation.

If you're using one of our YouTube API client libraries, then you're definitely making use of the modern Google Data YouTube API. If you're manually making HTTP requests to a URL whose hostname contains gdata.youtube.com, then you're also good to go. If you think you might still be using the legacy YouTube API but aren't sure, take a look at some of the example legacy API calls in this migration guide. If it turns out that you are still using the older API, then the migration guide will give you the information you need to upgrade – and be sure to do so before November 11!

Cleaning Up Our Embeds

Friday, October 30, 2009

For the longest time, official YouTube video embed codes have contained embarrassingly malformed URLs; the first URL parameter (at the end of URLs) should always start with a ? character, but our URL parameters begin with &. That looks something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/0XjwoVqM_qE&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 (incorrect) http://www.youtube.com/v/0XjwoVqM_qE?feature=player_embedded&fs=1 (correct)
Fortunately, we've found a way to use correct URLs without breaking old browsers and we can't wait to do it.
Speaking of changes to the embed code, we'll also be tweaking the HTML content. The new YouTube embed code is leaner and still works on everything from ancient desktop browsers to modern smart phones. You won't find another snippet of HTML that's as battle-tested and mother-approved! Here's a preview of the new, streamlined format:

And here's what the HTML looks like:
<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0XjwoVqM_qE?color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1">
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always">
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0XjwoVqM_qE?color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"
allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344">
</object>

If you grab YouTube embed codes by hand from YouTube.com, or from the YouTube Player APIs or oEmbed, you'll start getting this updated HTML soon. As for all the embeds already on the web: worry not, those will continue to work forever.

The ActionScript 3 YouTube Chromeless Player is Now Live

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

We have some good news for developers who integrate YouTube videos into their ActionScript 3 Flash applications: the official YouTube Chromeless Player API has been updated to natively support ActionScript 3!

Previous to this release, ActionScript 3 developers had to rely on wrapper libraries that bridged the gap between the native ActionScript 2 API and their own ActionScript 3 code. We're thrilled that intrepid developers were able to patch things together on their own and share their code with the rest of the community. Now that there's official support for using the chromeless player from ActionScript 3, everyone should have more time to focus on writing compelling Flash applications, rather than dealing with the unique issues that cross-language coding entails.

Please check out our ActionScript 3 documentation, and let us know what you think of the new API in our developer forum.

With the launch of ActionScript 3 support, we're officially deprecating the ActionScript 2 YouTube Chromeless Player API. As per our YouTube API deprecation policy, detailed in our Terms of Service, we will continue to operate the ActionScript 2 API for a period of three years (until October 14, 2012).

Cheers,

-The YouTube API Team

Direct Uploads Server Migration

Monday, October 12, 2009

We first announced our new API upload infrastructure back in June and asked developers to test their YouTube API code against our staging environment.

Since then, we've started deploying the new upload infrastructure to production machines in a phased manner. Last month, we transitioned browser-based API uploads to the new servers, and have been closely monitoring performance and error rates to ensure that there were no unintended side effects.

We're now ready to begin the transition for direct uploads. Starting today, a small percentage of direct uploads traffic will automatically be routed to our new servers. We will be monitoring traffic over the next few weeks and gradually increasing the traffic that the new servers receive until we have fully completed the migration.

As a developer, you won't have to make any changes in your code to take advantage of the increased reliability and bug fixes found in the new infrastructure. While we do expect that this new infrastructure will be fully backwards compatible, if you do notice any change in your application's behavior with regard to direct uploads, please let us know in our developer group.

Cheers,

-The YouTube API Team

oEmbed support

Friday, October 9, 2009

oEmbed is a pretty slick way to embed multimedia for a link. For example with a request like this:http://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DbDOYN-6gdRE&format=jsonYou get a response like this:{"provider_url": "http://www.youtube.com/",
"title": "Auto-Tune the News #8: dragons. geese. Michael Vick. (ft. T-Pain)",
"html": "embed code",
...}
The value for the "html" key is all you need to insert into your webpage to render an embedded YouTube video:

Check out the documentation at oEmbed.com for more information.

New Reporting Dashboard for Developers

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/dashboard/Posted by Kuan Yong, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

Caption your videos with the YouTube API

Friday, August 14, 2009

In August last year, we launched the ability to add captions to your videos on YouTube. Now, you can do the same using the YouTube Data API. With the new captions API, developers can create third-party apps that help users create, upload and manage the caption tracks of their YouTube videos. Each video can have multiple caption tracks, and multiple subtitle formats are supported. Find out more in our Developer's Guide.

Posted by Christoph Schwab-Ganser, YouTube Engineering

New Video Portal For Film Buffs, Powered by YouTube

Thursday, July 23, 2009

AFI.comYouTube channel

The collection will be regularly augmented with videos selected from the AFI Archive, which contains 10,000 hours of material produced during AFI's 42-year history, much of which has never been seen by the general public. Be sure not to miss great clips such as "Alfred Hitchcock On Mastering Cinematic Tension" or "Steven Spielberg: The Toughest Thing For A Director".

We're thrilled that the YouTube APIs can help unlock such amazing material. Nice work, AFI!

Posted by George Strompolos, YouTube Partner Team

Simple Update Protocol for User Activity Feed docs are now available

Thursday, June 18, 2009

sample applicationSUPSUPherePosted by Kuan Yong, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

Public Service Announcement - Upload Regression Testing

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

http://uploads2.gdata.youtube.comdiscussion forumPosted by Stephanie Liu, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

Google I/O Pass Winner!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

all the postslionstoneGoogle I/OTwitter streamvideos

Google I/O Pass

Monday, May 18, 2009

Google I/Owriting great, monetizable appsnew social feedsgreat sessionsschedulethis forum threadPosted by Stephanie Liu, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

YouTube APIs: Search Explained

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Modifying Chow-Down Part 2: Make it Faster!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

previous blog postChow Down Gdata

json-in-script supporthttp://code.google.com/p/gdata-samples/source/browse/trunk/chow-down-gdata/http://code.google.com/p/gdata-samples/source/browse/trunk/chow-down-gdata/src/templates/ajax_restaurant_info.htmljQuery JavaScript library

Modifying the Chow-Down Application, part 1: Adding media from YouTube and Picasa

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Chow DownGoogle FriendConnect APIGoogle AppEngineChow Down Gdatafull source codeYouTube Data APIPicasa Web Albums APIAJAX Search APIs

Python client libraryMVCJsonRestaurantInfoViewviews.pyajax_restaurant_info.htmlrestaurants_infoproviders/restaurants.pyrestaurants_info
# Create client and query to execute a YouTube search:
gdata_youtube_client = gdata.youtube.service.YouTubeService();
query = gdata.youtube.service.YouTubeVideoQuery()
query.vq = "%s %s" % (restaurant.name, restaurant.city)
video_feed = gdata_youtube_client.YouTubeQuery(query)

# Grab the URL to the embeddable Flash player SWF (if embeddable)
swf_url = video_entry.GetSwfUrl()

if swf_url:
restaurant.player = """<object width="425" height="350">
<param name="movie" value="%s"></param>
<embed src="%s" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
width="425" height="350"></embed></object>""" %
(swf_url, swf_url)
gdata_picasawebalbums_client = gdata.photos.service.PhotosService()
query_parameters = map(urllib.quote, [restaurant.name, restaurant.city]);

# Fetch a feed of 10 thumbnails, 32x32 pixels in size and cropped to a square
photo_feed = gdata_picasawebalbums_client.GetFeed(
"/data/feed/api/all?q=%s%%20%s&max-results=10&thumbsize=32c" %
(query_parameters[0], query_parameters[1]))
show_restaurant_infoajax_api_restaurant_infofull source code

Latest Release Notes: Playlist Search, Time, and More

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Search for playlistssearch for videoschannelssearch for playlistshttp://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/playlists/snippets?q=soccer&v=2Time filtering for video search
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=soccer&time=today&v=2 More resultspost in the forumPosted by Daniel Danciu, Software Engineer

Recent activity: apitestjhartmann has written a tutorial

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

YouTube has been getting more social latelyhands-on tutorialYouTubeActivityViewerPHP client libraryjQuerymemcache

Latest .NET SDK Released! LINQ & New Social Notifier Sample

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Posted by Frank Mantek, Google Data APIs Team

The new .NET SDK is released and available for download here:

http://code.google.com/p/google-gdata/downloads/list

There's now updated support for YouTube V2 and a new vertical object model that allows you to use local LINQ queries. Please go through the Google.YouTube namespaces and see what's new there. We have some documentation for it here:
http://google-gdata.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/clients/cs/docs/AdditionalContent/YouTubeLinqExamples.htmlNotifier for YouTubeactivity feedssamplehttp://google-gdata.googlecode.com/svn/docs/RELEASE_NOTES.HTMLhttp://code.google.com/p/google-gdata/issues/list

PHP Client Library: Uploading videos now 99% more efficient !

Monday, March 2, 2009

Posted by Jochen Hartmann, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

PHP Client LibraryFatal error: Allowed memory size of ... bytes exhaustedas of version 1.7.6 of the client libraryZend_Http_ClientHTTP POSTZend_Gdata_MediaMimeStreamZend_Gdata_HttpAdapterStreamingSocketcheck out the source codeflip a minor switch$yt = new Zend_Gdata_YouTube();$yt->useObjectMapping(false);$xmlString = $yt->getRecentlyFeaturedVideoFeed();echo gettype($xmlString); # will return 'string'$xmlStringZend_Gdata_VideoFeedXPathBackward Compatibility Guidelines

YouTube API Outgrows Shy Adolescence, Now Social

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Posted by Stephanie Liu, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

getting more socialdocsfully customizable

protocol guideJavaPHPactivity viewer samplesource codeforumGoogle I/Osession

TubeLoc: An AS3 Player Wrapper Using LocalConnection

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Posted by Jeff Fisher, YouTube APIs and Tools TeamTubeLoc

read the articleproject pageon the forum

YouTube APIs + iPhone = Cool mobile apps

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Update (Nov. 2013): The information in this blog post is out of date; the current best practice for embedding YouTube videos in an iOS application is to use the YouTube iframe Player within a UIWebView container.
Posted by Kuan Yong, YouTube APIs and Tools TeamTerms of Serviceunder certain conditions

Call the YouTube API Data API to search videos, get video metadata, etc. You should use our Objective C client library instead of trying to construct the HTTP request or parse the response by hand.

Invoke the native YouTube player on the iPhone to play videos.

Note that these two methods work only on an actual device, not in the iPhone simulator, since the latter does not have a YouTube player.Method 1: Open the YouTube play page URL (Easier) media tag in the API response with the application/x-shockwave-flash type. It should look something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0&f=gdata_videos&c=ytapi-my-clientID&d=nGF83uyVrg8eD4rfEkk22mDOl3qUImVMV6ramM

If you don't see the c and d parameters in the URL, it's because you are not passing in your developer key and client ID in the request. While they are not mandatory for read requests, we highly recommend that you provide them in every API request.

2. Open the URL in your app by calling the openURL method on your UIApplication instance:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0&f=gdata_videos&c=ytapi-my-clientID&d=nGF83uyVrg8eD4rfEkk22mDOl3qUImVMV6ramM"]];

When your app calls openURL, it will quit and launch the full native YouTube app on the phone. After the video stops playing, the user remains in the YouTube app. The user has no easy way of getting back to your app.

Method 2: Embed the YouTube player in a UIWebView
No, the iPhone still doesn't do Flash, but if you haven't already noticed, the Safari browser on the iPhone is clever enough to turn any YouTube embed into a clickable thumbnail that launches the native YouTube player app on the phone. You can take advantage of this feature in your app by using a UIWebView. Here's how:

1. Set up a UIWebView in your app. You can make it part of a xib or create it programmatically. Size the UIWebView according to how large you want the clickable thumbnail to be.

2. Grab the video url using the same method as the one described above.

3. Call the loadHTMLString:baseURL: method on the UIWebView instance with some carefully constructed HTML that contains the YouTube embedded player code snippet and some supporting HTML to make sure that the video thumbnail appears correctly. Set the base URL to the URL of your website (it doesn't do anything here -- ordinarily UIWebView uses it to handle relative URL links correctly).

The best way to illustrate this is with a code snippet. Note the use of the viewport HTML meta parameter and the consistent use of width and height parameters throughout.

// webView is a UIWebView, either initialized programmatically or loaded as part of a xib.

NSString *htmlString = @"<html><head>
<meta name = \"viewport\" content = \"initial-scale = 1.0, user-scalable = no, width = 212\"/></head>
<body style=\"background:#F00;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px\">
<div><object width=\"212\" height=\"172\">
<param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0&f=gdata_videos&c=ytapi-my-clientID&d=nGF83uyVrg8eD4rfEkk22mDOl3qUImVMV6ramM\"></param>
<param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"></param>
<embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0&f=gdata_videos&c=ytapi-my-clientID&d=nGF83uyVrg8eD4rfEkk22mDOl3qUImVMV6ramM\"
type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"212\" height=\"172\"></embed>
</object></div></body></html>";

[webView loadHTMLString:htmlString baseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.your-url.com"]];
One of the biggest benefits of this approach is that your app does not have to quit in order for the video to start playing. In fact, the iPhone will keep your app running in the background while it fires up the YouTube player to play the video. After the video finishes playing (or when the user hits "Done"), the user is automatically taken back to your app. This experience is very similar to watching embedded YouTube videos in the iPhone Safari browser and is just as seamless.

Have fun writing the next killer iPhone app, and don't forget to list your app in the YouTube Project Gallery once it goes live in the App Store!

Coming up: Adding YouTube content to Android apps

Show Me the Money

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Posted by Kuan Yong, YouTube APIs Product Manager

everyone's mind latelydocumentTerms of ServiceYouTube Project Gallery

Next IRC Office Hours: Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 1:00 - 3:00pm PST

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Posted by Stephanie Liu, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

Dark Chocolate Bacon CupcakesWhere:When:Who: xirzecstephliu jh_youtubediscussion forum

Inaugural IRC Office Hours: Wed, Jan. 21st, 1-3pm PST

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Posted by Stephanie Liu, YouTube APIs and Tools Teamirc.freenode.net #youtube-apiWhere:When:Who: xirzecstephliu jh_youtubediscussion forumUPDATE:

Flex + the Embedded Player: A Christmas Story

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Posted by Pamela Fox, Maps API TeamNORAD Santa Tracker

LocalConnection
// Flex
outBox = new LocalConnection();
outBox.send(outBoxName, "dispose");
outBox.send(outBoxName, "loadMovie", ids[counter]);

// AS2
var inbox = new LocalConnection();
inbox.connect(_root.boxName);
inbox.dispose = function () {
youtubeMC.destroy();
...
};

// Flex
outBoxName = String(new Date().getUTCMilliseconds());
swfLoader.load("youtubebridge.swf?boxName=" + outBoxName);

// AS2
inbox.connect(_root.boxName);
full code (MXML + FLA)demo app

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