How to Get Twitch Video Thumbnail URL? - twitch

Question

Video-sharing websites such as Youtube has a endpoint for video thumbnails
Example: http://img.youtube.com/vi/youtube_id/default.jpg
where youtube_id = the id of the video
So I can just do
<img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/youtube_id/default.jpg">
with no problem
Does twitch have something like this as well?

Answer 1

Update 2018
Twitch requires you to use its API so you can get access to video thumbnails. Apparently, this is because the URL of the thumbnails may change
Here is a simple guide how to get access to a twitch video thumbnail
You have to get access to Twitch dev API - to do this you need to register an account at https://glass.twitch.tv
After registering an account you must then create an App from your twitch dev dashboard
After creating the App, you will be given a Client ID to be used for that app - note that the app is the one which will be using the twitch API (for example, your website)
You can now pass the client_id as a query string parameter to https://api.twitch.tv/kraken/videos/106400740?client_id=xxxxxxx where 106400740 is the video id (note that 'kraken' here is constant - not sure of the origin behind its name) - note that the request will return a JSON object which contains an error message if you do not include a client_id
The request will return a JSON object which looks something like:
{
"title": "Door 5 vs Tilted Gamers",
"description": "COOL Games: Killing Spree first match # Mineski. Grove, Los Ba\u00f1os",
"description_html": "COOL Games: Killing Spree first match # Mineski. Grove, Los Ba\u00f1os<br>",
"broadcast_id": 1,
"broadcast_type": "upload",
"status": "recorded",
"language": "en",
"tag_list": "",
"views": 4,
"created_at": "2017-11-08T03:13:12Z",
"published_at": "2017-11-08T04:33:37Z",
"url": "https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/videos\/188543310",
"_id": "v188543310",
"recorded_at": "2017-11-08T03:13:12Z",
"game": "Dota 2",
"length": 2436,
"preview": "https:\/\/static-cdn.jtvnw.net\/s3_vods\/esportsdotcool\/188543310\/3534ab8c-bf7d-4c8a-b502-c406825bf75f\/thumb\/index-0000000000-320x240.jpg",
"animated_preview_url": "https:\/\/vod-storyboards.twitch.tv\/esportsdotcool\/188543310\/3534ab8c-bf7d-4c8a-b502-c406825bf75f\/storyboards\/188543310-strip-0.jpg",
"thumbnails": [
{
"type": "generated",
"url": "https:\/\/static-cdn.jtvnw.net\/s3_vods\/esportsdotcool\/188543310\/3534ab8c-bf7d-4c8a-b502-c406825bf75f\/thumb\/index-0000000000-320x240.jpg"
},
{
"type": "generated",
"url": "https:\/\/static-cdn.jtvnw.net\/s3_vods\/esportsdotcool\/188543310\/3534ab8c-bf7d-4c8a-b502-c406825bf75f\/thumb\/index-0000000006-320x240.jpg"
},
{
"type": "generated",
"url": "https:\/\/static-cdn.jtvnw.net\/s3_vods\/esportsdotcool\/188543310\/3534ab8c-bf7d-4c8a-b502-c406825bf75f\/thumb\/index-0000000012-320x240.jpg"
},
{
"type": "generated",
"url": "https:\/\/static-cdn.jtvnw.net\/s3_vods\/esportsdotcool\/188543310\/3534ab8c-bf7d-4c8a-b502-c406825bf75f\/thumb\/index-0000000018-320x240.jpg"
}
],
"fps": {
"144p30": 29.999544341896,
"360p30": 29.999544341896,
"480p30": 29.999544341896
},
"resolutions": {
"144p30": "256x144",
"360p30": "640x360",
"480p30": "852x480"
},
"channel": {
"name": "esportsdotcool",
"display_name": "esportsdotcool"
},
"_links": {
"self": "https:\/\/api.twitch.tv\/kraken\/videos\/v188543310",
"channel": "https:\/\/api.twitch.tv\/kraken\/channels\/esportsdotcool"
}
}
Under the thumbnails array you can find the url to the video.
PS: As you can see, the thumbnails array has length of 4 - at this point I think this is because of the different sizes of the image that the author of the video can put up