Final Decommission Notice for the Legacy YouTube API

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

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

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

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

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=json

You 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

Getting your YouTube web or client application up and running is only half the battle. We know that you'll also want to monitor your application to see how it's performing. Our new Developer Dashboard shows you at a glance the number of API requests, playbacks, uploads and errors that your app is generating. You can visualize the data using our interactive chart or download a file to process the data offline. To use the dashboard, you'll need to provide a developer key in your API requests and then pass the media URLs from the API responses to the standard embedded player or the chromeless player.

You can log into the new Developer Dashboard at http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/dashboard/

Posted by Kuan Yong, YouTube APIs and Tools Team

Caption your videos with the YouTube API

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