Dear Adobe, not allowing video links from Youtube, Vimeo an Dropbox is madness! Please fix this asap.

[paulh84454078]

Video content from these URLs is not compatible with the Adobe? How else are we to embed video? Attaching the physical video file would make the document too large and the only other way is to host your videos on some other platform other than Youtube or Vimeo ... is there another platform?

[Test Screen Name]

You need to use a media host. These are full service video playing services, NOT media hosts.

[paulh84454078]

Media hosts such as?

[Test Screen Name]

No idea what to recommend. It's a common requirement, but different from (say) being a web server. A better phrase might be "streaming media server" to emphasise that it takes care of complex delivery issues etc. A high end provider is Akamai. https://www.akamai.com/uk/en/resources/streaming-media-server.jsp . This is pretty technical, and I know exactly why you'd want to use Youtube etc. but they aren't the right kind of server.

[paulh84454078]

Couldn't Adobe make it work with mainstream services? Its in their interest, surely? I'm just doing my bit for consumer feedback ...

[Joel Geraci]

Yes. Adobe could make it work with mainstream services.

However, unlike embedding a YouTube iFrame in an HTML page, making YouTube videos work inside a PDF viewed in Acrobat and Reader would require using the YouTube API. The YouTube API has quota limits. If you hit the limits, Google will stop returning results until your quota is reset or pay for those extra requests. Adobe would either have to eat the cost of the requests (which it can't anticipate so it won't do) or create the YouTube widget in such a way that anyone who uses it would need to register as a YouTube developer and get an API key and set up an account for billing. The other services have similar restrictions.

Additionally, the YouTube API is subject to change and does change from time to time, an embedded Youtube player might not work in the future.

[paulh84454078]

Ah, I see, sounds complex. Thanks for answering.

Maybe Adobe could make its own host for the videos in that case? I see you can upload video to Spark..

[Joel Geraci]

Or.......

YouTube could provide a direct link to the video so that the existing player in Acrobat and Reader can stream directly from that service.

YouTube intentionally obfuscates the full URI to the video.

[paulh84454078]

Fair point. Ok, I'm going to back gingerly away from the problem now ...

Cheers

Paul

[Joel Geraci]

I'm about 6 months away from exploring this issue for a decade now. But YouTube runs on ad revenue. Having a direct link to a video would circumvent that business model. Yet... consistently... for years... Adobe gets the blame for not "allowing" embedded YouTube videos. Same for Vimeo. Dropbox is another story all together.

[Test Screen Name]

The problem here is basically money. Videos use a huge amount of bandwidth and server power which someone has to pay for. Youtube has its way of making money - adverts over and around the video - which don't apply if you use their direct method ... hence for high volumes someone has to pay. Adobe aren't in the video server business but if they were you can be sure it would cost.

[SvenC]

They just made their software completely useless...