guardian
Video thumbnail work
Hi all,
Sorry to add to this long thread. I've tried to make this email as sensible as possible. But it is quite complex, so please message me directly if you have any questions. I can also talk through anything that doesn't make sense.
@Simon Adcock @Petter Nitter and I had a catch up on this today to get our heads around what the current state of play is. I've included a description below of what we currently see on site for video thumbnails, as well as a proposal for how we might resolve the issues.
Context There are three types of thumbnail images that are set in the media atom:
- Guardian Video Thumbnail Used as preview thumbnail image on video in article pages, liveblogs and video pages 16:9
- Composer Trail Used to set the trail image of the video page on Fronts 5:4
- Youtube Thumbnail Used to set the thumbnail of the video on Youtube 16:9
Where can a video appear?
There are multiple places on the site that a video atom can appear and the different places show different thumbnails.
Video Page:
What does it show?
Main Video thumbnail: Currently the video page shows the Composer Trail (5:4) image cropped to a 16:9 ratio
Trail Image: The trail image is set by the Composer Trail (5:4) image.
What should it show?
Main Video thumbnail: Currently the video page shows the Composer Trail (5:4) image cropped to a 16:9 ratio Should show the Guardian Video Thumbnail (16:9)
Trail Image: The trail image is set by the Composer Trail (5:4) image. (Correct)
Article/Liveblog Page:
What does it show?
Main Media Video thumbnail: Currently a video set in the Main Media for article and liveblogs shows the Trail image (5:4, set in Composer at an article level) cropped to a 16:9 ratio Screenshot 2025-06-16 at 16.42.55.png Screenshot 2025-06-16 at 16.43.06.png
Inline Video thumbnail: Inline video in articles and liveblogs shows the Guardian Video Thumbnail (16:9) Screenshot 2025-06-16 at 15.49.52.png
What should it show?
Main Media Video thumbnail: Currently a video set in the Main Media for article and liveblogs shows the Trail image (5:4, set in Composer at an article level) overriding the thumbnail images and cropped to a 16:9 ratio
The reason that this exists is to prevent video thumbnails from:
- not being relevant to the story that they are set as main media on
- not being repeated across multiple pieces if they have the same video as main media
Previously, with the trail images as 5:3, we did not see this as a problem because the 16:9 ratio was very close to the trail ratio and so nothing would be cropped out of the image. As we have now moved to 5:4 for trails, we are seeing more instances of the trail images being improperly cropped.
There are a few possible solutions:
- Remove the auto cropped override and default to the Guardian Video Thumbnail (16:9)
- Keep the auto cropped 5:4 and make users aware that they need to select an appropriate trail when using a video as main media
- Do something more complex in the tooling around selection of the thumbnail from within the article/liveblog composer page
Inline Video thumbnail: Inline video in articles and liveblogs shows the Guardian Video Thumbnail (16:9) (Correct)
Summary I think from this investigation there are two actions that need to be done:
- Ensure that the Video page shows the Guardian Video Thumbnail rather than the Trail image
- Make a decision on what we want the behaviour to be in the Main Media of article/liveblogs
