Jetpack’s video hosting feature allows you to upload videos from your computer to be hosted on WordPress.com, rather than on your host’s servers. You can then insert these on your self-hosted Jetpack site.
Note: this page describes how to use Video Hosting when using the Classic Editor plugin or a Classic block. You can find instructions on adding a Video Block here. For general features and FAQs, please see our marketing page.
Jetpack includes unlimited video hosting for all users with Jetpack Security and Complete plans. Please note that there is a 2TB soft-limit on storage. If this limit is reached please reach out to Jetpack support and we can increase it for you.
Enabling Video Hosting
Once you’ve purchased the plan, go to Jetpack → Settings → Performance and activate the “High-speed, ad-free video player” option.
Uploading Videos
There are two ways to upload your videos:
- From WordPress.com, go to My Site(s) → Media. Drag the video file from your computer into the media library, or click Add New and select the video file from your computer.
- From the WP Admin dashboard, go to Media → Library and drag the video file from your computer into the media library. Note: Clicking Add New and selecting the video file in WP Admin will not upload the video to Jetpack. You must drag the file into the WP Admin media library instead.
Once your video has finished uploading, you’ll see a placeholder image in your media library while the video is being processed:
When it’s finished processing, you can select the video in your media library, and check the video url. If it’s uploaded to WordPress.com the video url will begin with https://videos.files.wordpress.com rather than your site url.
Note: Videos can only be uploaded to Jetpack video hosting through the Classic editor in the above two ways. It is not possible for people to upload a video from the front-end of the site, and have that video be automatically added to Jetpack video hosting.
Video Sharing Settings
Jetpack’s video hosting makes video playback and sharing a simple experience for your viewers through our default sharing options. Using the share links your viewers will be able to easily download and embed your videos. By default, clicking on the Share button in the video player reveals the following sharing options:
This will give anyone viewing your videos the option to download the video file in a variety of formats, and options for sharing the video permalink or iframe embed code.
If you would like to disable sharing, you can do that in the video settings in the Media Library. You can also turn off sharing while you are adding a video to a page by unchecking the option to display sharing options in the video player.
Note: Disabling sharing removes functionality, but it is still possible to download the video from your browser. We take reasonable steps to prevent embedding on other sites by hiding the sharing options, and that will stop most attempts.
Video Stats
All videos come with stats tracking which can be viewed from the Stats screen in your homepage. Clicking on the name of a video will display a chart showing daily activity for the video. It will also list the URLs where the video has been embedded. Plays are counted when a visitor actually clicks the play button on the Flash video player.
Additional Information
Jetpack’s video hosting supports MP4 (.mp4, .m4v), QuickTime movies (.mov), Windows Media Video (.wmv), Audio Video Interleave (.avi), MPEG (.mpg), 3GPP ( .3gp ) and 3GPP2 ( .3g2 ).
Video hosting also allows you to retrieve a video’s [wpvideo xyz] shortcode, and insert it into your post. You can then modify the video by adding these parameters in the shortcode:
- w=X for width in pixels, do not include units
- h=Y for height in pixels, do not include units
- hd=true/false to force HD playback
- freedom=true/false to force only use open-source video formats
- autoplay=true/false to automatically play the video when it loads
- loop=true/false to automatically play the video over and over
- at=x to specify a time offset in seconds that the video will start
Video preview elements and HTML5 video are directly inserted into your WordPress post or page, enabling custom styling through CSS or inclusion in your site statistics. All files are optimized for progressive loading, enabling viewers to play your video while it downloads.
Video hosting works well for files that are 1GB and lower. It may work for files between 1GB and 2GB, but the larger the file, the greater chance for the process to fail. Big files require a consistent and fast network connection. Most networks will timeout before you’re able to upload a file that’s larger than 1.4 GB. We cannot support any files that are larger than 2 GB.
Troubleshooting
If you’re having any trouble uploading videos, please refer to Troubleshooting Video Hosting Issues.
Privacy Information
This feature is deactivated by default, and activating/unlocking it requires the purchase of a Security or Complete plan. If you ever need to deactivate the feature, you can do so at any time by toggling the Fast, ad-free video hosting setting in the Media section from Jetpack → Settings → Writing in your dashboard.
| Data Used | |
|---|---|
| Site Owners / Users
In order to track video plays for your stats, we will send the site ID, post ID (on which the video is played), and domain name of your site with these events. If Google Analytics tracking is enabled, some video information (size, quality, format, file name, ID, etc.) will be sent there, as well. Please refer to the privacy documentation for WordPress.com Stats and Google Analytics for more information on the data used to record video play tracking. |
Site Visitors
Please refer to the privacy documentation for WordPress.com Stats and Google Analytics for more information on the data used to record video play tracking. |
| Activity Tracked | |
| Site Owners / Users
Video plays. We track when, and by which user, the feature is activated and deactivated. |
Site Visitors
Video plays. |
| Data Synced (Read More) | |
| Site Owners / Users
We sync a single option that identifies whether or not the feature is activated. |
Site Visitors
None. |
