Exported ePUB: Embedded Youtube or Vimeo video disappears

Report · Jan 05, 2018

Hi people!

I recently discovered the awesome features of Digital Publishing in Indesign.
What I am trying to do is make a portfolio with several pages in which youtube video's are embedded.
But when I export the .epub the video's disappear.

How I do it:

I paste the embed youtube link onto the page, a grey square appears, and after a view seconds the video appears, i reposition the frame. When I preview the page, I can play the youtube video, everything works fine. But when I export it to .epub and open it and go to the same page, the youtube video is there for a fraction of a second and then disappears. There is no animation attached to the frame of the video or anything. Also tried it with a vimeo video but that actually doesn't even show a fraction, the frame simply doesn't show up in the exported .epub.

Does anybody have suggestion or can tell me if I do anything wrong?

I hope you can help me! Thank you!

Rik

This is the embed code I use:

Report · Jan 05, 2018

That link is forcing a full screen video. Get the regular embed code from youtube and I’m pretty sure that will fix your problem.

Report · Jan 05, 2018

Moving to InDesign EPUB forum

Report · Jan 05, 2018

I removed allowfullscreen from the code but the video still disappears after exporting it again.
When I publish it online it works correctly, but I need to upload the file to blackboard so I am aiming to use an .epub

I just checked the file in Calibre and there the video's work. Could it be a problem within iBook?

Report · Jan 05, 2018

Could be a security setting. Are you checking is on a Mac or an iPad?

Report · Jan 06, 2018

I am checking it on a MacBook Pro.
Could you clarify if the security setting is activated within the .epub export settings or within iBook?
And thank you for thinking along so far, much appreciated!

Report · Jan 06, 2018

I just seem to remember an issue like this in the past with Mac security. Do you have an iPad to test it on?

Report · Jan 06, 2018

Unfortunatly not, I just did a test on my iPhone and the same problem occurs. thumbnail shows the video frame but when opened it disappears.

Report · Jan 06, 2018

Does it happen with all EPUBs?

Report · Jan 06, 2018

I just tested this here and all I can say is that something’s changed along the way because I can confirm the behavior.

I’ll see what I can find out about it.

Report · Jan 06, 2018

That would be great! I've tested it with .epub samples from the internet and they work but they all contain video's which are included in the epub itself. It caused my file to become 3GB, that is why I prefer to use hyperlinked video's to keep the file-size down to a minimum.

Thanks again! Curious to see what you'll return with.

Report · Jan 13, 2018

Hi Bob,

Any new updates?

Report · Jan 13, 2018

Nothing. I'll update this thread if I do find anything.

Report · Mar 26, 2018

Hey Bob,

Any updates here?

Report · Mar 26, 2018

No, and I don't think anything will change. It appears to be intentional on the part of Apple not to allow anything to run inside an iframe.

Report · Mar 26, 2018

Oh i see. Can we add web overlays like DPS to EPUB files?

Report · Mar 26, 2018

Not in any way I know of.

Report · Apr 03, 2018

Hi,

I send you some tips to work with streaming video. This works better with epub reflowable

You can export an epub 3 from InDesign, after edit it in Sigil, for example

Pay attention - this works better from server without https://, then you can upload the video to your own server

1 - HTML code - place this code where I can view the video. Change the src to your URL
<video controls="controls" poster="file.jpg">

</video>

2 - Content.opf - Edit the video item in content.opf and change the href for the same URL

3 - Content.opf - Edit the html item that recieve the tag video and apply the properties=”remote-resources”

I believe that from youtube wont works, but you can try.

Regards

Report · Dec 21, 2022

Your suggested solution seems to remedy all epubcheck errors. However, when the epub opened it says "invalid Source" and it does not play. Do I need to add something else to make it work? Thank you

Report · Dec 21, 2022

Epubcheck is not an absolute indicator that an EPUB is perfectly functional; it merely validates the code and structure of the file. As I keep noting, multimedia is largely outside EPUB specs, and presentation/playback is highly dependent on the EPUB reader in play.

Think of it this way: a mechanic can "blueprint" a car from end to end, to better than original condition in every way... and it will still drive like crap on a rutted, washboard road.