convert mp4 to gif

[muddy7]

what is an easy to use to convert very short mp4 videos to gif?

[sekininsha]

In Virtualdub2

1 File->Open Video File .. load mp4
2 [Mark In] and [Mark Out] Specify the 'start' and 'end'
3 Video->Filters .. if you want apply crop and resize
4 File->Export->Animated Gif.. (infinity loop)


[Attachment 50665 - Click to enlarge]

[LigH.de]

The quality, unfortunately, is not optimal. It seems to build a common 256 color palette over the whole clip. If you have very varying colors, you will notice the quantization. Other tools do a better job here, using partial palette changes, but are not so easy to use (e.g. JASC Animation Shop 3 supports hardly any common video format, not even all VfW codecs in AVI).

[Selur]

Using the command line ffmpeg could be used, see:

• https://medium.com/@colten_jackson/doing-the-gif-thing-on-debian-82b9760a8483
• https://engineering.giphy.com/how-to-make-gifs-with-ffmpeg/
• https://www.bugcodemaster.com/article/convert-video-animated-gif-using-ffmpeg

Cu Selur

[jagabo]

This batch file was posted here in the past. It builds a global palette then renders using that palette and error diffusion.

@echo off
::** create animated GIF w/ optimized palette
::
:: https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html#gif-2
:: http://blog.pkh.me/p/21-high-quality-gif-with-ffmpeg.html
:: http://superuser.com/questions/556029/how-do-i-convert-a-video-to-gif-using-ffmpeg-with-reasonable-quality

if not exist "%~dpnx1" goto :EOF
cd "%~dp1" 

::** generate palette
@echo on
@echo.
"c:\program files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe" ^
 -v warning -i "%~nx1" ^
 -vf "palettegen" ^
 -y tmp-palette.png

::** generate GIF
@echo.
"c:\program files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe" ^
 -v warning -i "%~nx1" ^
 -i tmp-palette.png ^
 -lavfi "[0][1:v] paletteuse" ^
 "%~n1.gif"
@echo off

del /q tmp-palette.png

if errorlevel 1 pause
goto :eof

Change the path to ffmpeg.exe if necessary. You can then drag/drop any video file onto the batch file to make a GIF.

A comparison 0f VirtualDub vs ffmpeg using a source with many colors and smooth gradients:

VirtualDub GIF:

[Attachment 50683 - Click to enlarge]

ffmpeg GIF:

[Attachment 50684 - Click to enlarge]

[Cornucopia]

Wow, that is a clear and noticeable comparison example!

Scott

[LigH.de]

Can I have the original, please? Would like to try the same with Animation Shop 3.

[jagabo]

Can I have the original, please? Would like to try the same with Animation Shop 3.

This was made with VirtualDub's Tools -> Create Test Video -> RGB Color Cube. Cropped and decimated.

[LigH.de]

Not extremely different to the ffmpeg result. It offers two quantization techniques: Octree and Median cut. But they differ obviously only when there are dominant colors.

VirtualDub seems to omit error diffusion. I know there are a variety of such algorithms, too, with more or less spread.

[EsteveJohnson]

Gif to mp4

Here a avisynth script with waifu2X(reduction noise and scale), convert any animated video or gif.

https://youtu.be/kdbhFVZ4vIM

[tom z]

I have a three second mp4 (1.3 mb) I'd like to convert to gif but the free upload converter sites are making the output size huge like 6 and 7 mb?

[LigH.de]

Of course. No surprise. Why do you wonder? GIF is not a suitable format for TrueColor sources. It supports at most 256 single distinct colors. To convert 24 bit RGB to 8 bit palette, a selection of the most prominent colors has to be calculated, but every pixel will have a difference to the original color. This error can either be disguised by dithering, then the result will look not too bad, but the compression is low; or it can be ignored, then the result will look ugly but can be compressed a little better. Still, for natural content, modern real video formats like MPEG4 are superior by magnitudes. Animated GIFs will beat MPEG4 video only in case of technical drawings with a low number of distinct colors and sharp edges.

[poisondeathray]

I have a three second mp4 (1.3 mb) I'd like to convert to gif but the free upload converter sites are making the output size huge like 6 and 7 mb?

It's what LigH said. Also gifs do not use temporal compression in the way modern video formats do, so it's normal for the filesize to get larger


There are various techniques to optimize gifs in terms of reducing filesize; such as decimating frames (and reducing framerate), variable frame timing, reducing the dimensions, filtering such as denoising, using a farther reduced color pallete, different types of dithering (some make the filesize much larger) . Unlikely that free upload converter sites will do a good job of optimizing it. Some of the decisions require human input on what tradeoffs to be made

Depending on what the situation is, or if the target site supports it, there might be some alternative formats that are better in terms of quality and filesize, such as animated webp

[Cornucopia]

Yup, difference between <1987-era intra-only codec efficiency and >2003-era inter+intra capable codec efficiency.

Scott

[tom z]

Thanks for the explanation guys!