There are different ways to embed a YouTube video in Markdown documents.
If the Markdown processor supports inline HTML, a YouTube player can be embedded using an iframe:
If the Markdown processor does not support inline HTML, the only way to add a video is to add an image that links to the video. You can use your own image or the thumbnail generated by YouTube. YouTube provides the following thumbnails for each video:
| URL | Description |
|---|---|
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/0.jpg | Full-size thumbnail |
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/1.jpg, https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/2.jpg, https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/3.jpg | Small thumbnail images |
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/default.jpg | Default thumbnail image |
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/hqdefault.jpg | High-quality default thumbnail image |
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/mqdefault.jpg | Medium-quality default thumbnail image |
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/sddefault.jpg | Standard-definition default thumbnail image |
| https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.jpg | Maximum-resolution default thumbnail image |
Additionally, i.ytimg.com can be used in place of img.youtube.com in all of the URLs listed above.
Using one of the thumbnails, it is possible to add a link with a still from a video, e.g.:
Made by Anton Vasetenkov.
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