Overview
The HTML <video> tag is used to show a video on a web page.
The <video> tag contains multiple <source> tags with various video sources to accommodate the various browsers. The browser will choose the first source it supports.
<video>
<source src="my-video.mp4" type="vido/mp4">
<source src="my-video.ogg" type="video/ogg">
Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>Note
It’s good practice to include a line of text inside the <video> tag for those browsers that do not support video.
To display video controls (play, pause, volume, etc.), place the controls attribute inside the <video> tag.
<video controls>
</video>The video can also be set to start playing on page load (not recommended), by placing the autoplay attribute inside the <video> tag.
A poster image for the video that displays before it plays and while it loads can be added using the poster attribute and linking to the image to use.
<video controls autoplay poster="/images/my-poster.jpg">
</video>There are many more attributes that can be used within the <video> tag.
| Attribute | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| autoplay | n/a - just the attribute is needed | Specifies that the video will start playing as soon as it's ready |
| controls | n/a - just the attribute is needed | Specifies that video controls should be displayed (play, pause, etc.) |
| height | pixels | Sets the height of the video player |
| loop | n/a - just the attribute is needed | Specifies that the video will start over again every time it finishes |
| muted | n/a - just the attribute is needed | Specifies that the audio output of the video should be muted |
| poster | URL | Specifies an image to be shown while the video is downloading, or until the user hits the play button |
| preload | auto metadata none | Specifies if and how the author thinks the video should be loaded when the page loads |
| src | URL | Specifies the URL of the video |
| width | pixels | Sets the width of the video player |
HTML Notes:
- In our HTML section the term “tag” and “element” are often used interchangeably to refer to both the tag used to create a page element and the element created by the tag (<p> tag = <p> element = paragraph on the page)
- HTML5 is not case sensitive; so <P> is the same as <p>, <H1> is the same as <h1>
- Global attributes can be used with all HTML tags and are therefore not mentioned on every tag page
- To write clean, readable HTML code, it is best to use indentation whereas elements within elements are indented (tabbed or spaces) to create something that looks like a project outline
- The browser will automatically remove any extra spaces and lines in your HTML code when the page is displayed
- Double quotes or single quotes can be used around HTML attribute values, but when the attribute value itself contains one form of quote, it will be necessary to use the other around the attribute
We’d like to acknowledge that we learned a great deal of our coding from W3Schools and TutorialsPoint, borrowing heavily from their teaching process and excellent code examples. We highly recommend both sites to deepen your experience, and further your coding journey. We’re just hitting the basics here at 1SMARTchicken.