I use Viper’s Video Quicktags for easily embedding videos in my blogs. Well, it turns out that instead of the video showing up on excerpt pages, the embedding code shows up instead.

Not very pretty.

Now, if you have a post, and there’s a video in it past the excerpt point, you’re ok. But I wanted to have a category that was kind of a like a vlog, where the post consists of a video and that’s it.

So I had to change all of my pages using the_excerpt (or The Excerpt Reloaded, which you should use to retain HTML formatting in your excerpts like links, bullets, etc.) to the_content.

But all is not lost – WordPress gives you two ways to manually generate excerpts that will appear on all multi-post pages, like the home page, archive page, and category page:

1. The “more” tag and button. If you are using the WYSIWYG editor, there is a “Split post with More tag” button. It is the button directly to the left of the Spellcheck button (with the ABC on it). Place your cursor where you want to end the excerpt, and click on the button. Or, press Alt+t.
2. Enter an excerpt in the Optional Excerpt field below the editor. I recently discovered that you can enter HTML in there, so if you want an image to appear in the excerpt, for example, you can enter the <a href=”"> tag and it works!

From a usability standpoint it’s probably better to manually create excerpts because they won’t cut sentences in the middle like the automatic feature does, and you can write a compelling teaser that will draw your reader in if you use the Optional Excerpt field.

All you have to do is click on an icon, and a pop-up window asks for the URL of the video you wish to embed.

Viper’s Video Quicktags>>

I decided to try to use one of the free online video sites. First I tried YouTube. The movie was rejected because of its length. Photobucket was even more restrictive in its size limitations. Then I did a search for “unlimited video hosting,” or something like that, and Google Video came up.

Google Video allows you to host videos with unlimited size and length! I don’t know why more people don’t use Google Video. Not only that, the embeddable player is prettier and less gaudy than the YouTube player, in my opinion.

The only limitation with Google Video is that you can’t upload Flash videos. But that’s not a major problem since you can easily convert Flash to Windows Media files with one of the free file conversion services like Zamzar.

I guess people like YouTube for its social aspect and community. But if you need to make a longer movie easily accessible, I highly recommend that you try Google Video!

This version supports those types of files: rm, rmvb, ra, rv, ram, smil, smi, rtsp, rpm, asf, wm, wma, wmv, wax, wvx, ogg, ape, avi, mid, midi, wav, mms, m3u, asx, mov, qt, mqv, m4v, m4a, m4b, mpeg, mpg, m1s, m1v, m1a, m75, m15, mp2, mpm, mpv, mpa, flc, fli, cel, aiff, aif, aifc, cdda, bwf, rts, 3gp, 3gpp, 3g2, 3gp2, au, snd, ulw, smf, kar, qcp, sdv, gsm, amr, caf, amc, mp4, sdp, pdf, fdf, xfdf, xdp, xfd, gif, jpg, jpeg, bmp, png, xpm, dir, dxr, dcr, cst, cct, cxt, w3d, fgd, swa, swf, spl, mp3, flv, rtmp, rbs, xml, rss, xspf, atom.

This version also supports YouTube, Ifilm, VSocial, TuDou Video, atomFilms, BrightCove, YoQoo, 5 Show, 6Room, Mofile TV, OuOu, www.yijian.com, tvix.cn, ku6.com, biku.com, uume.com, cnboo.com, kuho.com, v.blog.sina.com.cn, quxiu.com, 56.com, v.wangyou.com, v.9you.com, maidee.com, pomoho.com, ROX.com.cn, imeem.com, gofish.com, veoh.com, GameTrailers.com, Evil Chili, Wildko, Yikers Videos & Games, Red Balcony Videos & Games, Live Video, Odeo Audio, Revver, MetaCafe, MySpace, GoEar, Break, Stupid Videos, Viddler, DailyMotion, I’m Vlog, RockYou, SevenLoad, MyVideo.de, Clipfish.de and Google Video.

CoolPlayer 9 for WordPress>>