How to embed a youtube video in powerpoint with start and end time

This feature has now been around for quite a while, but it’s not that well known. Also it can be hard to find information about it online as people often call it deep linking – which makes sense if you know the jargon but isn’t the sort of phrase you’d otherwise guess is the one to look for.

So here’s how to create a link to a YouTube film which, rather than start playing at the start of the film, will start playing at a specific moment part way through the YouTube film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4L0pWUNp08#t=0m39s

As you can see, it’s really very simple – the YouTube web address and then two variables, to select which film you want and at what specific time in the film you want it to start:

o4L0pWUNp08 – which is the unique reference code for the video. If you are watching a film on its own page on YouTube, you’ll find this in the URL (address bar). If you are, say, viewing the film on a channel page, click on the “View comments, related videos and more” link underneath the video and this will bring up the clip’s own YouTube page.

0m39s – which is the starting time; in this case it means start playing 0 minutes and 39 seconds in to the film.

Embedding YouTube in PowerPoint to start at a particular time

In the five years since I first published this post, it’s been a regular favourite in search traffic to this site. So here’s an extra related point which can also be hard to find the answer to online and which PowerPoint does not give you hints about how to do.

Q. How do I embed a YouTube video in a PowerPoint presentation so that it starts at a certain time?

1. Find the video you want on YouTube.
2. Find out how many seconds into the video you want to start.
3. On the YouTube video, go to Share / Embed and copy the code it offers, which will start <iframe…
4. Paste the code into something like Word or a text editor.Edit the code to add ?start=60 just before the closing quote marks on the src=”…” part of the code, e.g. <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/STXz6Ukkl4U?start=60″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>60 means it will start 60 seconds in. You can change this to any other number to start at another point.
5. In PowerPoint, go to Insert / Video and select Online Video followed by From a Video Embed Code. Paste in the edited code and hit enter.

Have you ever wanted to show students just part of a YouTube video but had difficulty finding the start of the clip? Or maybe you have linked to a YouTube video in your Blackboard module and had to explain to students to just start watching from a certain point and to stop watching x minutes later? There is a simple way to make this easier on both staff and students. It is done by amending the link (also known as a URL) that you give to students.

Instead of giving students a YouTube URL like the one below, which will play the video from the start to end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BspouwCTXRo

This URL has been copied from the address bar in the browser.

You should copy the URL YouTube makes available inside the embed code for the video and add a question mark followed by a start and stop time, like so:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BspouwCTXRo?start=76&end=120 

This URL has been copied from the embed code and amended.
The video will start playing at 76 seconds and stop at 120 seconds.

It is also worth noting that the video automatically fills the browser window when using this method. Which means your students are less likely to be distracted by other YouTube content.

Finding the link in the embed code

To find the link in the embed code take the following steps:

1. In YouTube find the video you want and click the Share button on the right below the video.
   
   
2. Click the Embed button.
   
   
3. Copy the URL you see inside the embed code shown, making sure to copy everything between the speech marks but not copying the speech marks themselves.
   
   

Amending the URL

To the end of the link add a question mark and your chosen start and stop times in seconds, as seen below. Enter the start and stop times in whole seconds (e.g. one minute and two seconds = 62 seconds) and make sure not to include any additional characters or spaces or it will not work.

?start=67&end=80

When the above is added to the end of the YouTube URL the video will start at 1:07 and stop at 1:20.

Once you have amended the URL send it to your students in the usual way.

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