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Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

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Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#61
post #54
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>GIF has already been replaced by better formats. As long as Chrome/Webkit doesn't support APNG, there's no ubiquitous format that directly replaces GIF. >Today, "GIF" nearly always means a short looping video with horrible compression. To me, GIF means an image format. The fact that many people misuse the terminology doesn't mean we should propagate it. Instead, people should be educated on the difference between lo…

> As long as Chrome/Webkit doesn't support APNG, there's no ubiquitous format that directly replaces GIF. That's a fun trick, to quote one sentence and disagree with it in a way that is already covered by the following sentence stating there is an exception . Do you find this helps further the conversation?

I only quoted the sentence I was replying to. To assume I didn't read the rest of your message is, frankly, insulting. The exception you were talking about ("short looping video with horrible compression") is precisely the thing that both GIF and APNG aren't supposed to do well.

Both GIF and APNG support:

- palettes

- transparency

- different delay per frame

- combine/replace disposal mode per frame

Generic video formats don't generally support these.

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#62

It says "Spot the differences? :) There’s none." Really? The BPG is WAY worse, IMHO. It's immediately apparent. I noticed it with my eyes before I parsed the text.

MP4 to BPG conversion. What else did you expect? We're essentially converting from one frequency-domain format to another in order to accommodate an entirely new inter-frame compression format. There definitely needs to be a frequency-domain to spatial-domain conversion, which that, in itself, is lossy, then it goes back to frequency-domain when re-encoding. Give OP a break.

Not trying to not give them a break, but I'm pointing out they said clearly there's no difference in quality. There surely is.

To your excellent point about MP4 to BPG conversion, I'd say that OP should have used (did they? I don't know) the source material to avoid a "copy of a copy."

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#63

Half the comments are pointing out that BPG is implemented in JavaScript. Like no shit? It's not natively supported in browsers, and OP makes a call for everyone to push browsers to natively support it. I mean like, geez, I want a proper video-like playback format (e.g. 24+ frames per second) at a smaller file size, so that I can view videos on my mobile phone. Gif lags on mobile internet, and MP4 requires that we ex…

Mp4 requiring you to hit play is a /feature/ in my book. The fact that animated gifs automatically play has caused more problems, like annoying banner ads, than it's created.

Were this fifteen years ago, I'd recommend that the makers of this format create a proper plugin to handle this format in the interim, but because browser makers are terrified of extra functionality, especially on mobiles, we can't do that anymore.

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#65

you can't pronounce BPG like GIF, so I can't see a future for it.

Can't tell how serious you're being, but there's definitely something to that!

On the other hand, mp3 found its way into common parlance just fine, despite being decidedly unpronounceable as a word, so who knows.

Irony of course being the eternal debate over how to actually pronounce GIF: http://howtoreallypronouncegif.com/ ;-)

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#66
BPG is basically HVEC, so why not just use HVEC?

its a serious question, in 2 years HVEC decoders will be in all hardware. Which means fast, energy efficient decoders on virtually all platforms.

Having a seperate codec, which is basically a less capable version of an industry standard, whats the point? (ignoring the still images part for a second.)

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gif lags on mobile internet, and MP4 requires that we explicitly hit the play button on mobile browsers. Wouldn't the more obvious choice be simply adding an option in browsers to not require hitting the play button (perhaps for MP4 that has no sound)? Even with browser support for BPG, MP4 has the huge advantage of hardware acceleration in almost all modern devices[1]. [1] In theory, BPG may be able to take advant…

Honestly, I view the need to hit the play button as the right user-experience. Sure, a user-defined option to turn that off would be cool, but I'd never use it. I wish GIFs had that option as well, actually

I agree - I wouldn't enable that option either, but at least it'd offer a better alternative for people who do like GIFs / GIF-like animations.

It's a bit ironic that the autoplay functionality of BPG is touted by some as a major advantage, yet the only reason it autoplays is because it currently has to be implemented in Javascript (bypassing the normal push-to-play behavior of web video).

If the people pushing for native BPG browser support get their way, the most likely outcome will be BPG implemented with the same push-to-play UX as any other kind of web video.

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#68
post #18
post #4

Note that BPG is based on HEVC still frames, and may be more patent-emcubered than current alternatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Portable_Graphics#Paten...

Why not another BPG-like based on VP9, then?

Looks like FLIF can do animations as well. http://flif.info/animation.html

Re: Why BPG will replace GIFs and more

#69

Why can't we just use MP4? Add an inline JavaScript decoder for Mobile Safari, and then at least all the other browsers get instant hardware decoding. Are there trust issues with allowing third-party MP4 embeds into user-submitted content such as forums/hosted blogs? Do we need a "no sound"/"max file size" attribute on the video tag?

Videos--more specifically mp4 videos-- can be embedded into web pages. They just don't autoplay on mobile browsers. Hence why there is a push for alternatives to Gif/APNG and mp4/webm. We want a video-like animation, that plays on page load. Now, the real question is, why don't mp4s play when we hit play? I can only speculate, but I think it's because mp4s are streamable media, where a troll can simply decide to keep…

> We want a video-like animation, that plays on page load.

Not all of us want that. In fact many of us would rather decide for ourselves whether or not to play an animation, sound or not.

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