How to add video to a WordPress theme

Because video files are typically very large in size, we never recommend uploading them directly to your WordPress site, where they'd live on your server. That's because file sizes this large (if they even met your WordPress file size upload limit, typically set by your hosting provider) eat up a ton of space on your server, can take a long time load, and once they play, may not render at great quality as they stream from your server.

Instead, we always recommend using a third party service for video, and then embedding a video player into your posts, pages, or widgets as needed. A great example is YouTube—easy, right? With YouTube, simply upload your videos to your channel, take advantage of their streaming capacity (and great discovery tools!), then use the embed options to display a YouTube video player wherever you need it. Another great service that offers similar features is Vimeo. 

By using a third party service to host and stream your videos from, you won't experience the same issues with quality and streaming as you would if you uploaded video files to your own server. 

In terms of EmPress theme capability with embedded video players, you may embed a video player into any post or page in our themes, as well as into the widget area(s) of your choosing. Most video players embed with either iFrame code or shortcode, both of which are compatible with our themes.