So, the other day I switched the link of my Stream tile and I found out I needed to plan for a migration project of videos currently residing in Stream. Now my one-person-tenant does not have a lot of important videos anyway, let alone that they need to be migrated, but I can image that it would be an unpleasant surprise for anyone maintaining an Office365 tenant.
As I currently have some time on my hands, I have already thought about the approach of this migration project and shared that in my most recent post.
Part of your migration project will also be to replace all Stream web parts on SharePoint pages with other video player web parts. Let’s find out how things work, shall we?
Stream web part
I expect this web part to be disabled together with Stream. But you may want to know what it can look like when you look for Stream web parts to be changed.
By default, once you add this web part, the web part will show “All of Stream” with all videos you have access to. You can Sort by “Trending” (default), “Upload date”, “Views” or “Likes”. You can also filter on a word.
When you publish the page, you will see an array of cards, with thumbnails, titles, views and likes. On the top right you will see “View more in Stream”, which takes you to the Stream (Classic) landing page.
When you click on a video, it will open on the same page, in a large format.
You can also use a single video as a source. In that case you will need to add the URL and you can decide the starting point of the video. This looks like the screenshot below:
Please note there is not much to see before you hit the Play button. Only when you play will you see indications in the corners of the video that this is a Stream web part with a video living in Stream. (Especially the Stream logo bottom right). See my previous post, scroll to the bottom for screenshots.
You can also use a Channel as a source. After adding the URL you can Sort by the same options as above. This will look like the All of Stream web part, but then just a selection.
Do you see a larger web part with the text “Microsoft Stream” in bottom right? Then you do not have to do anything; this will be a video living in SharePoint or OneDrive, embedded in a File Viewer web part.
Alternative web parts
When you select web parts, search for “Video” and these options pop up:
I have not done anything with Viva Connections yet, so I will skip that one. YouTube is also out of scope – we are dealing with videos that live on SharePoint.
I have used a SharePoint page with one column, to keep things comparable.
As it turns out, videos on Stream (on SharePoint) have a different opening behaviour compared to Stream (Classic): Clicking on a thumbnail will open the document in SharePoint (or OneDrive), so you will no longer be on your page.
When you click the x top right after playing, you will open the library where the video resides, not go back to the page.
Perhaps there will be a “video portal” web part one day, or there might be a PowerShell script to change the behaviour, but I am currently not aware of that.
Update June 28, 2022: From mid-July 2022 you will be able to play videos in the Hero web part inline, so without leaving the page. Nice!
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File Viewer
File ViewerFile Viewer is excellent when you want to show just one video.
- Easy to pick the video from the site.
- Has a nice large display on the page (depending on the column width of course).
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Hero
Hero The Hero web part can be used for multiple videos, but it has downsides:
- You need to manually add each link.
- Displays thumbnail, but not a nice card.
- You can only add 5 per web part, so you have to manually add multiple web parts if you want to display more.
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Highlighted content
This is a good alternative for the “All of Stream” or “Channel”.
- The actual sorting is displayed on top of the web part. (“Most recent videos”)
- You can show a library, or use a filter. I filtered for content type Video and all videos in the site are shown.
- You can filter (on word) and sort (Most recent, Most viewed, Trending, Managed property).
- You have various display options – screenshot below is “Grid”, but you can also use List, Carousel, Compact and Filmstrip. This Grid, Carousel and Filmstrip show cards.
- You can select how many items you want to display.
The final page looks nice, with the cards and the play button. There are no views or likes displayed.
If you are looking to build a portal-like site, you can check out this blog by Chris Hoard, aka Microsoft365Pro. He also uses the Highlighted Content web parts.
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Link
The Link web part can be used to embed just one video. I do not think it has any advantages over the File Viewer.
- You need to find the video, then copy and paste the link.
- It shows only a small thumbnail.
- You need to remember to remove the ugly link before you publish.
- There is very little information except the title and that is in file format (.mp4)
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Quick Links
This is another good option for multiple videos, especially if they are not living in the same site/library. I have already sung the praise of this web part before.
- You can easily pick the videos to display. You need to be careful with linking outside of your site due to permissions, though.
- You can select different display options – I have used Grid because it shows the thumbnail, but you can also use Compact, Filmstrip (shows thumbnail as well), Button, List and Tiles.
- The video shows the title only, but with the length of the video in the corner.
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Saved for later
This web part is useless as it displays only your own saved items and these include News items, documents etc.
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Document library
This is not mentioned in the video web parts but an option when you have a dedicated video library. It will show a more elaborate card, that you can tweak, but needs some work, so I would use the Highlighted Content if that looks good enough for your purpose.
- First you will have to change the default view from List to Tiles. Save the view.
- Click on the Views dropdown and select “Format current View” from the menu.
- Select the “Document Card Designer” radio button and then “Edit card”
You can now select the columns you want to show in the card, and if you want to show the column name.
Only you can determine whether this is worth the extra work.
Conclusion
None of these web parts show or play the video exactly as the Stream web part does, but in many cases the following web parts will be good alternatives:
- For just one video, e.g. on a page with an explanatory text, or as a side column with a News post, I would suggest you use the File Viewer web part.
- If you want to quickly display all (or most) videos from a site, the Highlighted Content is your best friend, but the Document Library web part with some modifications can work, too.
- If you want to pick videos from a site or different sites, the Quick Links may be a good option.
Hope this was helpful and please let me know if you have any questions or tips for others in the same boat!