I used to wonder how YouTube picked the thumbnails that are displayed for videos. Sure, the person posting the video gets three options to choose from, but how are those three thumbnails selected? The answer to that question is posted on blogs and message boards around the web, so I thought I’d pass it along.
When a video is uploaded to YouTube, three points are referenced for thumbnails, here are the formulas: Thumbnail 1 = R x 0.25; Thumbnail 2 = R x 0.50; Thumbnail 3 = R x 0.75 (R is the running time of the video in seconds). So conceptually it looks like this:
Start —– T1 —– T2 —– T3 —– End
1 Comment
June 21, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I think it is worth noting that YouTube has changed the manner in which it selects the thumbnail for videos. It is no longer possible to predict what image will appear.