Removing black borders on youtube thumbnails

YouTube offers images that don't have the 4:3 ratio black strips. To get a 16:9 video thumbnail with no black strips, try one of these:


http://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/mqdefault.jpg

http://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/maxresdefault.jpg



For other YouTube thumbnail option you can use following.

https://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/0.jpg

https://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/1.jpg

https://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/2.jpg

https://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/3.jpg

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Get Video ID in WordPress

$video_link = get_field('youtube_video',get_the_ID()); 

if (preg_match('%(?:youtube(?:-nocookie)?\.com/(?:[^/]+/.+/|(?:v|e(?:mbed)?)/|.*[?&]v=)|youtu\.be/)([^"&?/ ]{11})%i', $video_link, $match)){
    $video_id = $match[1];
}