APIs /

oEmbed

oEmbed is an open standard for embedding videos and/or images into a website. To find out more about oEmbed, view the spec.

Endpoint

You can use the API endpoint to request the embed code for a video from its URL. The response format can be either xml or json.

http://vimeo.com/api/oembed.format

Vimeo videos can use one of three URL schemes:

http://vimeo.com/* http://vimeo.com/channels/*/* http://vimeo.com/groups/*/videos/*

If you supply a channel video URL, extra data about that channel will be returned with the response. Similarly, you’ll get data about a group if you use the group URL.

All of the above URLs will also work with HTTPS.

Discovery

Vimeo supports discovery of the oEmbed URL. Each page that has a video will have two link tags with types application/json+oembed and application/xml+oembed containing the URLs for JSON and XML oEmbed responses.

Arguments

All arguments are sent as query parameters and must be urlencoded (as per RFC 1738).

url	(required) The Vimeo URL for a video.
width	The exact width of the video. Defaults to original size.
maxwidth	Same as width, but video will not exceed original size.
height	The exact height of the video. Defaults to original size.
maxheight	Same as height, but video will not exceed original size.
byline	Show the byline on the video. Defaults to true.
title	Show the title on the video. Defaults to true.
portrait	Show the user’s portrait on the video. Defaults to true.
color	Specify the color of the video controls.
callback	When returning JSON, wrap in this function.
autoplay	Automatically start playback of the video. Defaults to false.
loop	Play the video again automatically when it reaches the end. Defaults to false.
xhtml	Make the embed code XHTML compliant. Defaults to false.
api	Enable the Javascript API for Moogaloop. Defaults to false.
wmode	Add the "wmode" parameter. Can be either transparent or opaque.
iframe	Use our new embed code. Defaults to true.

If the owner of a video is a Plus member, some of these settings may be overridden by their preferences. is_plus is provided in the response to alert you when the owner is a Plus member.

Examples

These are sample responses (they have been shortened for formatting). If a group video URL is used, additional data will be returned about the group. If a video’s privacy is set to anything other than public or password protected, only the embed code, width, and height will be returned.

XML

http://vimeo.com/api/oembed.xml?url=http%3A//vimeo.com/7100569

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<oembed>
  <type>video</type>
  <version>1.0</version>
  <provider_name>Vimeo</provider_name>
  <provider_url>http://vimeo.com/</provider_url>
  <title>Brad!</title>
  <author_name>Casey Donahue</author_name>
  <author_url>http://vimeo.com/caseydonahue</author_url>
  <is_plus>1</is_plus>
  <html>&lt;iframe src=&quot;http://player.vimeo.com/video/7100569&quot; width=&quot;1280&quot; height=&quot;720&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;</html>
  <width>1280</width>
  <height>720</height>
  <duration>118</duration>
  <description>Brad finally gets the attention he deserves.</description>
  <thumbnail_url>http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/294/128/29412830_1280.jpg</thumbnail_url>
  <thumbnail_width>1280</thumbnail_width>
  <thumbnail_height>720</thumbnail_height>
  <video_id>7100569</video_id>
</oembed>

JSON

http://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=http%3A//vimeo.com/7100569

{
  "type": "video",
  "version": "1.0",
  "provider_name": "Vimeo",
  "provider_url": "http:\/\/vimeo.com\/",
  "title": "Brad!",
  "author_name": "Casey Donahue",
  "author_url": "http:\/\/vimeo.com\/caseydonahue",
  "is_plus": "1",
  "html": "<iframe src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/7100569\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe>",
  "width": 1280,
  "height": 720,
  "duration": 118,
  "description": "Brad finally gets the attention he deserves.",
  "thumbnail_url": "http:\/\/b.vimeocdn.com\/ts\/294\/128\/29412830_1280.jpg",
  "thumbnail_width": 1280,
  "thumbnail_height": 720,
  "video_id": 7100569
}

PHP and Javascript Examples

We have two examples for you: a really basic example for embedding a specific video on a page, and a fancier one that grabs and embeds the latest video from a user. Both examples are available from our API Examples repo on GitHub.