Youtube Video Thumbnail Image Hotlink

Youtube, the most popular video sharing website owned by Google, is also one of the best content resources for web publishers, bloggers, and also app developers. You can easily embed videos available on Youtube directly on your websites or apps so you users or audience could watch videos without having to go Youtube video page.

Youtube also lets you put the video thumbnail images on your page so you can show them to help users preview the videos that might be interesting for them to watch. Here is the link format if you want to get Youtube video thumbnail images.

Image Link Format

Youtube video thumbnail hotlink format:
http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/#.jpg

Format Information

For example, a Youtube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZS0Vj9irYs
As you may already know, JZS0Vj9irYs is the ID of the video.

Replace:
VIDEO_ID - with the ID of the video, e.g.: JZS0Vj9irYs
# - with thumbnail number: 0, 1, 2, or 3

.

Alternative Formats

The following formats doesn't always work, may depend on video size:
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.jpg
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/hqdefault.jpg

.

Examples

Youtube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZS0Vj9irYs

Thumbnail hotlinks :
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/JZS0Vj9irYs/maxresdefault.jpg
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/JZS0Vj9irYs/hqdefault.jpg
http://img.youtube.com/vi/JZS0Vj9irYs/0.jpg
http://img.youtube.com/vi/JZS0Vj9irYs/1.jpg
http://img.youtube.com/vi/JZS0Vj9irYs/2.jpg
http://img.youtube.com/vi/JZS0Vj9irYs/3.jpg

.

Youtube video thumbnail image hotlink by fanDigital

PS: Still, sorry for my English :)