UMass Chan CMS Blog

We updated the Video Block to support more options for picking Thumbnail Previews for your videos when using YouTube as the host.

Examples

Background

When you upload a video to YouTube, that system actually generates a bunch of Video Preview sizes. In the previous version of the Video Block, we arbitrarily selected a medium-sized preview image. Unfortunately, that didn't work so well if the video block was placed, for example, in the Vertical Content Area or even the Main Body of a page. The image could look a little blurry and have black bars on top and bottom like this Cancer Center example:

Thumbnail Size Options

In order to address that, we updated the Video Block to allow you to select different Thumbnail sizes for YouTube. You now have three options:

• Small (480x360)
• Medium (640x480)
• Max (Same size as video)

Small is a good choice if you plan to put the Video Block in the left or right content areas. Those regions are fairly narrow so a small thumbnail will work well. Generally, you want to use the smallest image that looks good for your case.

Medium is a good choice if, for example, you have the Video Block in the Vertical Content Area but have it's width set to 33% or 50% or something similar.

Max is a good choice when you place the Video Block in the Vertical Content Area and the width is 100%. Note that Max is the same dimensions as the video you uploaded. So, if you uploaded a 1920x1080 (HD) video, then that will be the size of your image. That can be overkill in some cases, but it offers the best quality when the Video Block is placed in a wider region of a page.

Here is the same image as above but with the Thumbnail Size set to Max.

The image is much clearer and the black bars are gone.

By the way, the black bars appear when the width and height of the Video Block doesn't quite match the aspect ratio of the preview image. We don't really control that. The reason you don't see them at the Max settings is because the preview image better matches the width of the Vertical Content Area and Main Body.

If you're looking for a little more control over the Thumbnail size of your YouTube Video blocks, take a look at this new block property.