How to embed new Youtube's live video permanent URL?

Question

I stream live on youtube a lot and since yesterday I experience a weird thing:

I embedded the livestream URL in my site. it was youtube.com/embed/ABCDE (normal embed link). That link used to show the current livestream and not a specific video. for example:

I'm streaming and you can watch it on youtube.com/embed/ABCDE. When i'm finished, the video gets its own url, something like youtube.com/watch?v=FGHIJ. In the next time I will stream, users can watch the stream on youtube.com/embed/ABCDE (that was a permanent url that didn't change).

Now, every time I stream, the livestream get its own link at first place, which means I have to update my embed code manually every time I stream.

I researched a bit around Google, SO and YouTube and I found out that a livestream's permanent url is youtube.com/channel/CHANNEL_ID/live. It's awesome and all, but I can't find a way to embed it.

(I use wordpress and I didn't find any plugin to do it automatically for me).

TL:DR; how to embed the livestream in the page youtube.com/channel/CHANNEL_ID/live?

Answer 1

The embed URL for a channel's live stream is:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/live_stream?channel=CHANNEL_ID 

You can find your CHANNEL_ID at https://www.youtube.com/account_advanced

Answer 2

The issue is two-fold:

1. WordPress reformats the YouTube link
2. You need a custom embed link to support a live stream embed

As a prerequisite (as of August, 2016), you need to link an AdSense account and then turn on monetization in your YouTube channel. It's a painful change that broke a lot of live streams.

You will need to use the following URL format for the embed:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/live_stream?channel=CHANNEL_ID&autoplay=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> 

The &autoplay=1 is not necessary, but I like to include it. Change CHANNEL to your channel's ID. One thing to note is that WordPress may reformat the URL once you commit your change. Therefore, you'll need a plugin that allows you to use raw code and not have it override. Using a custom PHP code plugin can help and you would just echo the code like so:

<?php echo '<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/live_stream?channel=CHANNEL_ID&autoplay=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>'; ?> 

Let me know if that worked for you!