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Gifs suck as a user interface. It’s not just the huge file size, they also - Must load entirely before playing (whereas video formats can load as they play) -

Gifs suck as a user interface. It’s not just the huge file size, they also - Must load entirely before playing (whereas video formats can load as they play) - Don’t show any progress/buffering icon while they load, so it just looks like the page has frozen - Lack the ability to skip/scrub through the video (if I miss a part, now I have to wait the entire thing to loop) - Don’t have audio Actually, these aren’t really issues for short gifs (<5 seconds). But long videos which have been converted into gifs are quite common.

jsjohnst 6y ago
> Actually, these aren’t really issues for short gifs (<5 seconds). But long videos which have been converted into gifs are quite common. Anybody doing the latter is the problem, not really the format’s fault it’s being used improperly. Any GIF with more than XX frames (for me that’s up to around 100 depending on content, but everyone is free to make their own decision) should be a video. GIF is meant to be for short animations, not for showing videos.
Dylan16807 6y ago
> Must load entirely before playing (whereas video formats can load as they play) Huh? What browser are you using, that's not normally true. You can even stream live content via gif. http://gifsockets.twolfson.com/ http://gifsockets.twolfson.com/