Select Thumbnails?

zebracloak

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Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone has figured out whether the uploader selects the three optional thumbnails at random or whether it is actually the same point in the video every time? Like, does it select the frame from 1/5, 2/5, and 3/5 points in the video? Has anyone ever tried to strategically place their clips to receive a certain thumbnail for their video? I have always wondered about that...

Thanks,
zebracloak
 
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Michael

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Good question, I wouldnt mind knowing the answer to this myself.
 

Stef

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I think it's every point every time. I saw a video about it.
 
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Ray The Video Guy

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It used to be the beginning, exact middle and end. The problem is, people were putting 1 frame of something right in the center and using that as a thumbnail. So, they now choose a random shot from the first third, second third and third third of the video. The only way to get what you want would be to have the desired thumbnail to be the end of the video and have it be on the screen for a third the length of the video.
 
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Th3StuffShow

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It used to be the beginning, exact middle and end. The problem is, people were putting 1 frame of something right in the center and using that as a thumbnail. So, they now choose a random shot from the first third, second third and third third of the video. The only way to get what you want would be to have the desired thumbnail to be the end of the video and have it be on the screen for a third the length of the video.
to summarize, it pretty random. :p
 

JTAphotographs

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It's not as random as you may think... I researched about this a while back and it chooses three thumbnails from around the beginning middle and end. The choices YouTube makes are generally based on the amount of time that it has to 'remember' the still image. This is often why people would place a thumbnail design for about 30s at the end of a video. However it is very difficult to predict what YouTube does and how you can almost 'cheat the system'