Squarespace Auto Playing Video Banner Guide
IMPORTANT INFO
Video specs
Must be less than 20 seconds to avoid loading issues
No text in video as it may get cropped out on certain devices
Hosted on a Vimeo paid account
A fall back image should be provided for slow connections and certain mobile devices
Video hosting
Squarespace does not host your video, it simply takes a Vimeo link. This means that your video must be uploaded to a Vimeo account. The Vimeo account must be a paid account, a free account will not work. Read more about Vimeo’s pricing here.
You can also upload your video to a free YouTube account but in our experience the quality is lower and there are frequent bugs such as the controls bar or the related videos showing at the end. We recommend Vimeo for the smoothest playback.
Can I test some videos out before putting them on a paid Vimeo account?
Yes. We recommend uploading your video to a free YouTube account first. That way it can be tested in the auto playing video banner. Please note that YouTube will often show the related videos or controls bar - these bugs won’t be there once you get your final video onto Vimeo.
Limitations
Won’t play on all devices - The video will not play on all mobile devices so a fall back image must be provided
Loading speed - As video files tend to be quite large - there will be a delay between the page loading and the video loading - keeping your video as short as possible will help reduce the delay.
Cropping - Your video will crop significantly to adjust to different screen sizes (landscape on desktop devices and portrait on mobile devices). Because of this we do NOT recommend having text within your video. You can, however, have a static sentence sitting on the page on top of the video.
UPLOADING A FALLBACK IMAGE
The fall back image will display on devices or connections where the video cannot play. It will also display while the video is loading, we recommend using the first still of your video as the fallback image so the transition is smooth. The image should be resized to 1500px wide with a file size of less than 400kb.
