Automatic YouTube conversions

Status: Auto-conversion from YouTube is currently paused.

YouTube's ongoing download restrictions made our existing import method unreliable, so we've stepped away from running it as a live feature. We're exploring an importer-style replacement inside the SmartVideo library that would let you pull a YouTube URL into your own SmartVideo storage on demand, but we don't have a timeline to share.

What to do in the meantime

Manual upload. Download the YouTube video to your computer, then upload it to SmartVideo storage through your SmartVideo library or our WordPress plugin. Once it's in SmartVideo, you get all the player benefits (clean UI, fast playback, no YouTube branding) without depending on YouTube as a source.

For other supported sources, see our supported file sources.

Why use SmartVideo over YouTube embeds

Even with auto-conv paused, hosting your video files in SmartVideo (via manual upload) still gives you everything that made auto-conv valuable in the first place:

• A clean player. No overlays, no "recommended" videos pulling viewers off your site, no YouTube branding overshadowing yours.
• Faster playback. SmartVideo begins playback 12x faster on average and buffers 8x less during playback than YouTube. YouTube's player is heavy with tracking and ad scaffolding; ours is built only to play your video.
• Your traffic stays on your site. Cleaner player, no traffic leaks, longer time on page.

Bottom line: moving a YouTube video into SmartVideo storage — even by hand for now — keeps your visitors on your site longer, focused on your brand, and more likely to become customers.