Let’s say you have a video you want to put up on your blog but you don’t want to first upload to YouTube or any third party video hosting site. How do you embed the video on your site so it still plays like a YouTube video? Here’s how.

Photo by G & A Scholiers

1. Check what format your video is. For the web, it’s best to convert it into flash first. So if you have a .WMV or .MOV file, I would convert it into a .FLV first. If you’re using Windows, you can use the Free converter called Super to go that. Their website is quite confusing. Scroll to the very bottom to find text that says “Download SUPER © setup file”. Set it up on your computer, convert the file and save it to your computer.
2. For your blog, download and install a plugin that supports embedding FLV files like Viper’s Video Quicktags (VVQ) on your blog. There are also several other FLV player plugins available here. Do check the video player license. Viper’s Video Quicktags uses the JW FLV Media Player which requires a license if you’re using on a commercial blog.
3. Upload your video file (after converted into .flv) to your website/blog
4. Use the embed code the plugin uses. For example, if you use VVQ, you’d enter something like this in your post where you want the video to appear.

   [flv]http://site.com/path/to/file.flv[/flv]

Write and save your post. You’re done.