GIF on Twitter Has Slanted Frames

[pone44]

I downloaded a cute GIF from Twitter, which was in an .MP4 file, of a cat giving CPR to another cat. I do not understand why Twitter calls this a GIF when the source file appears to be .MP4, but okay. I then tried to convert the .MP4 to a .GIF using Easy GIF Animator for Windows, and I get the horrific result in the attached .GIF. It looks like there is some kind of interlacing issue here. Can someone identify what I need to do when creating the GIF to have the color return and the normal frame orientation return?


[Attachment 46449 - Click to enlarge]

[davexnet]

Have you looked at the mediainfo of the source file for clues?

[jagabo]

Try using mod4 (integer multiples of 4) frame sizes.

[pone44]

Have you looked at the mediainfo of the source file for clues?

Here is mediainfo:

General
Complete name : Cat-CPR-on-Cat.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42 (mp42/mp41/isom)
File size : 113 KiB
Duration : 4 s 200 ms
Overall bit rate : 220 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2018-08-12 09:34:58
Tagged date : UTC 2018-08-12 09:34:58

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3
Format settings : 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 4 s 200 ms
Bit rate : 214 kb/s
Width : 346 pixels
Height : 194 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 10.238 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 10.000 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 1 000.000 FPS
Original frame rate : 1 000.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.312
Stream size : 110 KiB (97%)
Title : Twitter v1.0-75xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Writing library : x264 core 148
Encoding settings : cabac=0 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=2 / psy=0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=1 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=crf / mbtree=0 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=2:1.00
Encoded date : UTC 2018-08-12 09:34:58
Tagged date : UTC 2018-08-12 09:34:58

[pone44]

Try using mod4 (integer multiples of 4) frame sizes.

You were right and this solves the problem.

What is going on here?

[davexnet]

Some decode codecs mess up on mod 2, I think that's all it is

[jagabo]

A lot codecs and programs can't handle mod2 frame sizes.

[LigH.de]

The original video probably had an odd width, and the converter used optimized routines expecting image lines being aligned with WORD (2 byte) or DWORD (4 byte) RAM addresses. The lack of colors confirms this guess, it probably lost RGB color information due to misaligned colors.

You may have to use a different tool to convert this MP4 to a GIF. Let's see what JASC Animation Shop can do, one moment...

Enjoy:


Animation Shop 3 could not read the MP4 directly, but I converted it in VirtualDub2 to an AVI with Ut codec with RGB base, that could be imported.

[pone44]

The original video probably had an odd width, and the converter used optimized routines expecting image lines being aligned with WORD (2 byte) or DWORD (4 byte) RAM addresses. The lack of colors confirms this guess, it probably lost RGB color information due to misaligned colors.

You may have to use a different tool to convert this MP4 to a GIF. Let's see what JASC Animation Shop can do, one moment...

Enjoy:


Animation Shop 3 could not read the MP4 directly, but I converted it in VirtualDub2 to an AVI with Ut codec with RGB base, that could be imported.

So your final GIF is beautiful, although the file size is not optimized. But why is animation shop 3 a better tool to create GIFs? It does not look particularly special purpose for this function.

[LigH.de]

Why do you say it is not optimized? What kind of optimizations do you expect instead? I could probably squeeze out more bytes, but that may result in visible artifacts. You know, GIF has only a limited number of colors (max. 255 per frame, optimally per whole animation), and if you reduce it further (e.g. 127 or 63), it may cause heavier quantization, popping dithering...

JASC Animation Shop 3 allows you to tune a bunch of optimization options. After loading a source, try the "Optimization Wizard" in the File menu.

A pity the moderators deleted the link to the original MP4 file while merging two posts, and I worked earlier on a different PC. Please try to link it again. Then I can upload more versions, trying to reduce the GIF size further.

Oh, I could determine it: Cat-CPR-on-Cat.mp4, 115,725 bytes

255 colors: 1,696,322 bytes


127 colors: 1,441,294 bytes


63 colors: 1,100,892 bytes


You can't make an animated GIF with natural content much smaller than an MP4 because MP4 has more efficient compression techniques for natural content. But animated GIFs can be superior for technical animations with a very low number of distinct colors and large areas of exactly the same pixel color.

[pone44]

Why do you say it is not optimized? What kind of optimizations do you expect instead? I could probably squeeze out more bytes, but that may result in visible artifacts. You know, GIF has only a limited number of colors (max. 255 per frame, optimally per whole animation), and if you reduce it further (e.g. 127 or 63), it may cause heavier quantization, popping dithering...

At 255 colors your file size is good.

JASC Animation Shop 3 allows you to tune a bunch of optimization options. After loading a source, try the "Optimization Wizard" in the File menu.

Do you know if they plan support for MP4 imports? Given how dominant MP4 has become that is unusual that such a sophisticated environment would not support MP4 directly.

A pity the moderators deleted the link to the original MP4 file while merging two posts, and I worked earlier on a different PC. Please try to link it again. Then I can upload more versions, trying to reduce the GIF size further.

Oh, I could determine it: Cat-CPR-on-Cat.mp4, 115,725 bytes

How were you able to find the .MP4 file? I originally had it linked in my original post but then the link showed as broken so I deleted it.

[poisondeathray]

I do not understand why Twitter calls this a GIF when the source file appears to be .MP4, but okay.

twitter converts all gifs to mp4

BTW , a higher quality version of the original commercial is here
https://vimeo.com/35402870

A higher quality starting point usually means you have more options to optimize it better ( whatever you're doing, whether it be gif, or something else). It will be cleaner, higher signal to noise ratio in general.

That mp4 and gif you posted are frame sampled as in fewer frames (the original animation is 23.976p, with roughly 2x the frames for that sequence). But some other common techniques used to reduce filesize are denoising, variable frame timing (e.g. that mp4 and gif has 1 repeat frame at the end, by using variable frame timing, you can cut off that last frame and hold the 2nd last frame 2x longer, reducing the filesize), lossy encoding (not just palette color reduction, but you can "degrade" each frame too), dithering options (some produce smaller filesize with similar visual quality) . These are all quality/filesize tradeoffs, and not all programs necessarily have these types of options. Sometimes you need to use several programs

[LigH.de]

Do you know if they plan support for MP4 imports?

Certainly not. JASC has been bought by Corel many years ago, and Animation Shop is an abandoned project (it was published in parallel to Paint Shop Pro 9).

[pone44]

Do you know if they plan support for MP4 imports?

Certainly not. JASC has been bought by Corel many years ago, and Animation Shop is an abandoned project (it was published in parallel to Paint Shop Pro 9).

So would the Paint Shop Pro 9 product offer the same optimization features for GIF, while better supporting MP4 import?

[LigH.de]

No, PSP9 is just as old as AS3, and it is a single image painting tool, it does not support videos at all. You obviously did not search before asking that...

I don't know any current GIF animator tools from own experience, AS3 was always sufficient for me. But QGifer may be a tool for your needs (demo video).