Summary of YouTube URL parameters which will let you specify embedded player settings like start time, autoplay, controls – to use with Stornaway Voyager interactive video for YouTube

Stornaway Voyager is a revolutionary new technology for adding interactivity to YouTube and all other embeddable social platforms.

When using it, you can use YouTube’s ‘URL parameters” to customise how the YouTube player behaves when it loads.

Google’s help article about parameters is here – it’s more in-depth, but harder to understand.
https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters

So on this page, we’ve summarised what you need to know here in simple text.

Ru’s video about how to make YouTube interactive using Stornaway Voyager with these parameters is embedded at the bottom.

Top YouTube URL parameters for controlling your player:

If you’re embedding a YouTube video on your website, you might want to control how the video behaves for your visitors. Luckily, YouTube provides a variety of parameters you can add to the video URL to customize the player. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do that in a simple way.

Step 1: Extract the Embed URL

When you want to embed a video on your site, start by clicking the Share button under the YouTube video and then select Embed. This will give you an embed code that looks something like this:

For Stornaway Voyager, part you need is the URL in the src attribute, which in this case is:

Once you’ve extracted this URL, you can start adding parameters to control the video’s behavior.

Step 2: Combine Parameters

You can combine multiple parameters by separating them with an & symbol. Here’s a simple example:

If you want your video to:

• Start at 90 seconds,
• Autoplay when the page loads,
• Hide the playback controls,

You would add the start=90, autoplay=1, and controls=0 parameters to the URL like this:

Once you’ve edited the URL, you can paste it into the Stornaway Voyager URL section for an Story Island, and the video will behave according to your specifications.

The 4 Most Useful YouTube URL Parameters You Can Add:

Here are the most commonly used parameters you can add to your YouTube embed URL to customize the player:

1. Start Time

Set the video to start playing at a specific time by using the start parameter. The value is the number of seconds from the beginning of the video.

Example: Start the video at 1 minute and 30 seconds (90 seconds):

2. Autoplay

Want the video to start automatically when the page loads? Use the autoplay parameter. Set it to 1 to enable autoplay.

Example:

3. Controls

You can show or hide the video controls by using the controls parameter. Set it to 0 to hide them.

4. Stopping YouTube remembering your last-viewed time.

When linking to different parts of the same video in Stornaway, you should use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode by embedding the video from the youtube-nocookie.com domain instead of just YouTube.com . This prevents YouTube from collecting your viewer’s last-viewed tine data.
You should also add ?enablejsapi=1

Mute

Mutes the video when autoplay is enabled.

Example:

Playlist

Plays a list of videos in a playlist. Use a comma-separated list of video IDs.

Example:

Rel

Controls whether related videos are shown at the end of playback.

Example:

FS (Fullscreen)

Enables or disables the fullscreen button on the player. 0 is off. It’s on by default. Note that when a YouTube video is fullscreen in Voyager, it can’t show the buttons on top.

Example:

CC Load Policy

Forces captions (subtitles) to display automatically when the video starts.

Example:

HL (Language)

Sets the player interface language using a two-letter language code (e.g., en for English, es for Spanish).

Example:

IV Load Policy

This controls the visibility of video annotations like interactive cards. Setting to 1 causes video annotations to be shown by default, whereas setting to 3 causes video cards to not be shown by default. The default value is 1.

Example:

Disable KB (Disable Keyboard Controls)

Disables keyboard controls for the player (e.g., spacebar for play/pause).

Example:

Playsinline

Allows the video to play inline on mobile devices, instead of automatically going fullscreen.

Example:

Color

Changes the color of the video progress bar. Only works in certain player modes. Options are red or white.

Example:

Have fun making YouTube interactive in Stornaway!

That’s all for now – there have been others in the past, but they’ve been deprecated/discontinued.

Please ask if you have any questions. Have a great day – and happy Voyages!