SharePoint 2010 – Embedding Youtube Videos in Wikis – Media Failed to Load

You’d think this would be easier, but…no.

This issue popped up when a client was trying to embed a youtube video in his shiny new wiki by editing the HTML & adding the <object> embed code. Sadly, the code was stripped once the page was saved and he turned to me for help.

I then tried to do Insert > Audio & Video > Change Media > From Address and enter the youtube video address which seemed like a logical way to do things. Unfortunately, I was only greeted by the error message “Media failed to load.”

What???!!! Of course this isn’t going to be easy. Eventually, after digging around, I did find a solution.

Essentially you have 2 options for embedding video:

1. Upload a video onto the SharePoint site & embed using the Media Web Part
2. Embed a Youtube (or other source) video using the Content Editor Web Part

Option 1 works very easily:

1. Edit Page & Check Out
2. Click “Insert” > “Audio & Video”
3. A Media Web Part appears on the page. Click the center of the web part & a new Medio Options ribbon shows up
4. Click “Change Media” > “From Computer”
5. Browse to the video file on your computer (It gets uploaded to the “Site Assets Library” by default, but you can change this)
6. Save & Check In
7. Click the video to play it.

Option 2 is a little trickier, but does work:

1. Edit Page & Check Out
2. Click “Insert” > “Web Part”
3. Click the “Content & Media” section & pick the “Content Editor Web Part”
4. Click the down arrow at the top right of the web part > “Edit Web Part”
5. Click the web part and enter some text about the video (if you don’t when you edit HTML in the next step there will be a bunch of junk and it will be hard to figure out where to insert your embed text)
6. On the Ribbon > Editing Tools > Format Text, you will see an HTML menu. Select “Edit HTML on this menu”
7. Paste your <object…> embed code here
8. Save & Check In
9. Click the video to play it.