Video Storage & Hosting

Video Storage and Hosting

YouTube is the recommended storage and hosting solution for video. However, before you upload a video to YouTube, we recommend you contact your Cascade manager to inquire about any existing YouTube accounts or preferred practices for your department, area or school. If your manager recommends creating a new account, follow our guidelines on creating a new social media account at W&M.

Once your video is uploaded to YouTube and follows the requirements below, Cascade offers multiple solutions for incorporating it within your site — embedding a YouTube video within the content area at various sizes or creating a YouTube Widget for use in the right-hand column.

Video Requirements

Videos must meet the following accessibility requirements:

• Synchronized Captions: All videos that contain audio must include synchronized closed captions.
• Audio Descriptions: For non-live video that contains synchronized audio, you must provide an audio description or a descriptive text transcript to convey visual information.
• Video-Only Content: For pre-recorded videos that contain no audio (silent videos), you must provide either a text alternative (a full description of the visuals) or a separate audio description track.
• Primary Audio Track: Videos should be produced with "radio-style" narration so that the content makes sense if someone is consuming just the audio track. This includes verbally reading any text elements that appear on screen.

Due to YouTube's terms of service, all videos on our Cascade websites must be designated "not made for kids" (general audience) in YouTube Studio. We recommend only embedding videos from an official W&M channel to help ensure this practice is followed.