Jan Hoek

<p>Vital Video is a WordPress block plugin designed to improve Core Web Vitals performance when displaying YouTube videos.</p>
<p>Instead of traditional embedding, it provides a lightweight, performance-optimized solution that first loads a clickable video thumbnail.</p>
<p>The Vital Video Block doesn’t play videos in the WordPress editor. It’s designed to prioritize performance and user experience on your frontend. To test video behavior, simply preview your post or page.</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Performance-first YouTube video display.  </li>
<li>Automatic video thumbnail and title retrieval.  </li>
<li>WebP image support for faster image loading.  </li>
<li>Customizable aspect ratios (4:3 and 16:9).  </li>
<li>Displays the video title in the image.  </li>
<li>Multiple thumbnail quality options.  </li>
<li>Minimal initial page load impact.  </li>
<li>Option to disable WebP images if unavailable.  </li>
<li>Advanced video playback controls.  </li>
<li>Uses YouTube’s no-cookie thumbnail service.  </li>
<li>Respects modern browser autoplay policies.  </li>
<li>Alt text matches the video title.</li>
<li>Thumbnail dimensions set based on selected image size:
<ul>
<li>HQ (480×320): Default size  </li>
<li>SD (640×480): Standard size  </li>
<li>MAX (1280×720): Highest available resolution</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Vital Video Settings</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Aspect Ratio</strong>: Choose between 16:9 and 4:3.  </li>
<li><strong>Mute Toggle</strong>: Control video playback behavior.  </li>
<li><strong>Thumbnail Quality</strong>: Select from High, Standard, or Maximum resolution.  </li>
<li><strong>Disable WebP</strong>: Turn off WebP usage if unavailable.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Mute Toggle</h3>
<p>The Mute Toggle feature is designed primarily for mobile devices, adhering to browser autoplay policies.</p>
<p><strong>Mute Toggle Off (Sound On):</strong></p>
<p>Videos require two clicks to start playing:</p>
<ol>
<li>The first click loads the video.  </li>
<li>The second click begins playback. Ideal for maintaining user control and preventing unexpected audio.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Mute Toggle On (Sound Off):</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Videos play with a single click.  </li>
<li>Automatically starts muted.  </li>
<li>Perfect for situations where immediate video playback is desired.  </li>
<li>Complies with browser autoplay restrictions.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Disable WebP Images</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>WebP is enabled by default.</strong> Most thumbnails will use the WebP format.  </li>
<li>However, if you encounter a dummy placeholder image, try selecting a different thumbnail size to see if another WebP version exists.  </li>
<li>If no WebP images are available, you can enable the “Disable WebP Images” option as a last resort. This – will use fallback formats like JPG instead.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Only use “Disable WebP Images” when absolutely necessary!</em></p>
<h3>External Services</h3>
<p>This plugin connects to YouTube’s services to embed videos and retrieve video information:</p>
<p><strong>YouTube Video Service:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>The plugin connects to YouTube’s embed service (youtube-nocookie.com) to display videos</li>
<li>When a video is played, it loads the video player from YouTube’s servers</li>
<li>YouTube’s terms of service: https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms</li>
<li>YouTube’s privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>YouTube oEmbed API:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Used to fetch video titles when adding videos to your content</li>
<li>Sends the YouTube video ID to retrieve the video title</li>
<li>API documentation: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>YouTube Thumbnail Service:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Retrieves video thumbnail images from i.ytimg.com</li>
<li>Only loads thumbnails for videos you’ve embedded</li>
<li>No personal data is sent to this service</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> This plugin uses YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode by default, which helps protect your visitors’ privacy by not setting cookies until the video is played.</p>
<h3>Contributing</h3>
<p>Contributions are welcome! You can support Vital Video in various ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Write about the plugin on your blog or share it on social media.  </li>
<li><a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/vital-video-block/" rel="nofollow ugc">Translate the plugin into your language</a> using your WordPress.org account.  </li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/vital-video-block/reviews/#new-post" rel="ugc">Review the plugin here on WordPress.org</a>.</li>
</ul>


Vital Video Block

A YouTube block optimized for performance, allowing you to embed YouTube videos without harming your Core Web Vitals.

Raul P.

<p>HTML, CSS & JS optimization plugin for developers and advanced users. Note you need to look into the HELP tab after installing the plugin and manually configure it for your site. Each site is different, so the default recommendations may or may not work for you and you will need to test and find out how to adjust your settings.</p>
<p>Minification is done on the frontend during the first uncached request. Once the first request is processed, any other pages that require the same set of CSS and JS files will be able to reuse the same generated static CSS or JS file.</p>
<p>If your cache is growing significantly, this could mean one of your CSS or JS files is dynamic and changes on every pageview. In that case, you would need to add the file to the ignore list, else the cache would grow indefinitely (because obviously the original files themselves are dynamic and when you minify, the plugin sees a different file).</p>
<p>Kindly read the HELP section after installing the plugin, about possible issues and how to solve them.</p>
<h4>Additional Optimization</h4>
<p>I can offer you additional <code>custom made</code> optimization on top of this plugin. If you would like to hire me, please visit my profile links for further information.</p>
<h4>WP-CLI Commands</h4>
<ul>
<li>Purge all caches: <code>wp fvm purge</code></li>
<li>Purge all caches on a network site: <code>wp --url=blog.example.com fvm purge</code></li>
<li>Purge all caches on the entire network (linux): <code>wp site list --field=url | xargs -n1 -I % wp --url=% fvm purge</code></li>
</ul>
<h4>How to customize the cache path ?</h4>
<p>You need a public directory to store and serve minified cache files. If you need to customize the path and url, you need to edit your <code>wp-config.php</code> and add both <code>define('FVM_CACHE_DIR', '/absolute/path/to/example.com/your/public/directory');</code> and <code>define('FVM_CACHE_URL', 'https://example.com/your/public/directory');</code> .</p>


Fast Velocity Minify

But the new version is not as good as I expected. 

The complicated setting interface does not work from time to time.
Strange CDN settings(not work neither), supports that do not solve problems.

I want the old version back, please.

Was the best

Maximize GTmetrix, PageSpeed and enhance Web Vitals by minifying CSS/JS, lazy loading scripts, optimizing images, and improving load speed overall.

Vital Video Block vs Fast Velocity Minify