Video as Featured Image

[Jenny]

I wanna start a new post series and I was wondering if there was a way to make a youtube video the featured image on a post. My blog is here: http://so-very.me so you can see what I'm trying to do (so to speak).

I found a plugin that makes it happen but it doesn't work with the genesis coding.

Any help would be awesome.

[MarkP]

I would like to be able to do this as well, but with Wistia and self-hosted videos on Amazon S3.
Any help out there?
Thanks!

[Jenny]

Anyone? C'mon I know someone has the secret 😛

[Summer]

There's a plugin called Featured Video Plus that I've used in the past that will put a video as the featured image. Maybe that will work for you?

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WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

[Jenny]

I tried that one. It doesn't work right and there is no support for it.

[jdaviescoates]

I'd also like to be able to do this. Lots of other themes do it, there must, surely, be a way to do it using genesis powered themes too, no?

[Brad Dalton]

I tested this solution using Genesis and it works http://wpsites.net/best-plugins/how-to-auto-add-youtube-video-thumbnails-as-featured-images/

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[jdaviescoates]

Thanks Brad, looks like a potentially useful plugin, but it doesn't actually put the embedded video where the featured image normally goes (which is what I and I think the others on this thread actually want to do), just a video thumbnail. Not really the same thing.

[Brad Dalton]

It did when i tested it.

Link to your site please.

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[jdaviescoates]

Here is a page that shows what I mean:
http://omexchange.staging.wpengine.com/test-video-thumbnail-post/

As you can see there is a video thumbnail where the featured image is, not the actual video embed code, which is displayed below.

[Summer]

As I'd mentioned above, the Featured Video Plus plugin can give you the video in place of the featured image, but I think it will use the video's thumbnail as the featured image as a fallback if it needs to.

It is supported through the WP.org repository, tho the plugin author can be a little slow to respond. It does work with Genesis, I have it running on http://www.ZombieChannel.com/ and while it took quite a bit of fiddling to get it to work initially, it's been running fine for about a year now.

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WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

[jdaviescoates]

Thanks Summer,

That does work better for me than the video thumnail plugin. 🙂

However, the video embed code is only displayed on single posts e.g. http://omexchange.staging.wpengine.com/testing-featured-video-plus-plugin/ not on the blog home page http://omexchange.staging.wpengine.com/blog/ nor archive pages http://omexchange.staging.wpengine.com/category/uncategorized/

Any idea how I can the embed code to show on the blog home/ archive pages too?

I've got as far as realising that the problem "almost certainly occurs because the theme does not use WordPress' default functions for displaying featured images (get_the_post_thumbnail and the_post_thumbnail). These functions are required for the plugin to hook into the WordPress core" but I'm struggling to put that knowledge to use.

How do I tell Genesis to use get_the_post_thumbnail and the_post_thumbnail on the blog home page and archive pages?

Thanks!

[jdaviescoates]

OK, well I'm not sure if I've done it the best/ most efficient way, but after a bit more googling and playing around I managed to get it working by adding this to my functions.php file and then unchecking 'Include the Featured Image?' in Genesis -> Theme Settings > Content Archives

//* Code to Display Featured Image (and therefore featured video embed) on archive posts
add_action( 'genesis_before_entry_content', 'featured_post_image', 8 );
function featured_post_image() {
  if ( is_singular( 'archive' ) )  return;
	the_post_thumbnail('post-image');
}

[Summer]

I think you got it... I have an archives page of the 2 different videos category that do that: http://www.zombiechannel.com/category/zombie-videos/

I think I did something different regarding the_post_video instead of using the_post_thumbnail, though,,,

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WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

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