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 load the videos when a user clicks on the thumbnail?
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.