Embedded Youtube videos slowwww things down

I'm creating a site with a lot of embedded Youtube videos, but it seems the video players take a while to load. Is there a way I could speed things up?

If this is not possible, then how do you embed just the thumbnails and l开发者_如何学JAVAoad the videos when a user clicks on the thumbnail?

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About your first question:

You cannot control the load speed because the videos are not hosted on your server but on Youtube's one.

About your second question:

You can check this address in order to find out how to extract the thumbnails from the youtube videos: http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-thumbnail-image/

After that you can load the youtube video on onclick using Ajax or simple redirect to a separate page where video is positioned.