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GIFs should not be compared to videos, for one GIF is 30 year old technology with obvious limitations, however, there is still demand due to its portability. It

GIFs should not be compared to videos, for one GIF is 30 year old technology with obvious limitations, however, there is still demand due to its portability. It also creates better effect if its very short clip, which most GIFs are. I appreciate you checking it out.

SimeVidas 6y ago
In what sense are video files not portable? Any web browser can play them without issues.
- jazzyjackson 6y ago
  I still haven’t figured out the magic codec I can plug into ffmpeg so the self hosted videos on my Wordpress work on all web browsers (i thought h264 would do it but mobile still doesn’t like it) gifs are designed to be portable and work every time
  - tenryuu 6y ago
    In contrast, if your gif is over 1MB, my mobile browser will not display it. This is done to prevent excess data use. (It's a uBo ruleset) I'm unsure what browsers will still not support h264 however. Most commonly you'd find webmasters using both webm and mp4s in their video sources to allow the benefits of the webm filesize, and the mp4 to support ios devices
  - XCSme 6y ago
    Check this out: https://gist.github.com/ingramchen/e2af352bf8b40bb88890fba4f47eccd0 https://gist.github.com/ingramchen/e2af352bf8b40bb88890fba4f...
    - jazzyjackson 6y ago
      I always forget about yuv420p, I'll try it thanks!
catalogia 6y ago
What platform doesn't have the ability to play an mp4 file? GNU Icecat on a FSF approved distro maybe, but beyond that? The portability advantage of gifs are greatly overstated. The way I see it, gifs are strictly obsolete. They're big, load slow, and have limited color support (what's the point of a high-resolution gif if you're going to trash all the color data anyway?)
- builderone 6y ago
  You made all the right points about GIF, it is an outdated technology for sure, but nothing has truly replaced it yet, there is apng as well as other technologies, but that's not universally supported as GIFs are.

SimeVidas 6y ago

In what sense are video files not portable? Any web browser can play them without issues.

jazzyjackson 6y ago
I still haven’t figured out the magic codec I can plug into ffmpeg so the self hosted videos on my Wordpress work on all web browsers (i thought h264 would do it but mobile still doesn’t like it) gifs are designed to be portable and work every time
- tenryuu 6y ago
  In contrast, if your gif is over 1MB, my mobile browser will not display it. This is done to prevent excess data use. (It's a uBo ruleset) I'm unsure what browsers will still not support h264 however. Most commonly you'd find webmasters using both webm and mp4s in their video sources to allow the benefits of the webm filesize, and the mp4 to support ios devices
- XCSme 6y ago
  Check this out: https://gist.github.com/ingramchen/e2af352bf8b40bb88890fba4f47eccd0 https://gist.github.com/ingramchen/e2af352bf8b40bb88890fba4f...
  - jazzyjackson 6y ago
    I always forget about yuv420p, I'll try it thanks!

catalogia 6y ago

What platform doesn't have the ability to play an mp4 file? GNU Icecat on a FSF approved distro maybe, but beyond that? The portability advantage of gifs are greatly overstated. The way I see it, gifs are strictly obsolete. They're big, load slow, and have limited color support (what's the point of a high-resolution gif if you're going to trash all the color data anyway?)

builderone 6y ago
You made all the right points about GIF, it is an outdated technology for sure, but nothing has truly replaced it yet, there is apng as well as other technologies, but that's not universally supported as GIFs are.