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It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

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Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#191

Post by qalmakka »

niftich wrote: post #179
ehsankia wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, in my opinion for this to work, we need an AV1 derivative that acts as a GIF: 1. Similar looping behavior 2. No audio 3. Can be put in an tag You should be able to save the file like you would a gif, and viewers should also show it as they would a gif (not a video).

Given the current direction of the industry, the most likely candidate for this in the not-so-distant future is HEIF, which has support for an image-sequence [1]. HEIF is an ISOBMFF (aka Quicktime/MP4 container)-derived container format for images, image sequences, and transformations. Its most visible use right now is Apple Live Photos, but various use-cases exist [2]. OS and application support is increasing. Work…

Which, exactly like GIF in its very beginning, is encumbered by an infinite amount of patents. You can't replace an open format with a patented one; killing video patents is the very reason AV1 exists.

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#192

Post by asdff »

lohszvu wrote: post #167
Ezhik wrote: post #126

At this point, killing GIF is a UX problem, not a format problem. I've talked about this before [0], but the big problem for me is that video is just difficult as hell. Compared to a GIF, it is just that much harder to save a video on a phone, and then upload it the same way as an image. Try to save a "GIF" from Twitter or from GIPHY - it's a /huge/ pain. Whatever the GIF killer is will need to pass the right click t…

Gif was killed a long time ago by webm

Last I checked my iPhone can't do webm or webp

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#193

Post by __jal »

izzydata wrote: post #188
__jal wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any application that doesn't allow me to stop something from being annoying, will be stopped from being annoying by being uninstalled. If browsers made it such that I couldn't not stop .gif animations (or playing video, or...), I would trash that browser. Bluntly, you do not get to control my computer.

The point is that they are more images than videos. They have no possible way to contain sounds so the annoyingness is limited to having unwanted images in your browser. You can tell your browser to block a particular still image. You can do the same thing to block a GIF. You don't need a pause/play feature on a 2-5 second sequence.

No, the point is control. You have no idea what I need.

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#194

Post by nessunodoro »

iainmerrick wrote: post #130
Ezhik wrote: post #126

At this point, killing GIF is a UX problem, not a format problem. I've talked about this before [0], but the big problem for me is that video is just difficult as hell. Compared to a GIF, it is just that much harder to save a video on a phone, and then upload it the same way as an image. Try to save a "GIF" from Twitter or from GIPHY - it's a /huge/ pain. Whatever the GIF killer is will need to pass the right click t…

Yes. Just one problem I discovered recently is that no other format does looping properly. With a GIF, you can right-click and save it, and all the looping info is inside the file. The quality is crappy, but it just works. With all “proper” video formats, looping info is metadata, stored separately. You can’t even go for something slightly more modern, animated PNGs, because there are warring formats and very few too…

For reference, pyAPNG works great for creating animated PNGs. If you have a sequence of static PNGs, you can assemble them with APNG.from_files() [1]. Example looping APNG (346K) [2], with alpha channel (456K) [3].

1. https://pypi.org/project/apng/ 2. https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/4Q-yKMEPwm2higaB8Wj1pNII60j... 3. https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/kSUouIZtNICOcPf4v9F8fPOrpAe...

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#195

Post by mkl »

nightfly wrote: post #18

Calling AV1 something that looks almost exactly like AVI seems like a mistake...

The naming is a bit annoying, but they are completely different kinds of thing: AVI is a container format (which can contain a variety of different codecs, e.g. mpeg-4), and AV1 is a codec (which can be put in a variety of different container formats, e.g. mp4). We don't seem to get confused between mpeg-4 and mp4, which have the same kind of similarity.

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#197

Post by tty2300 »

Ezhik wrote: post #126

At this point, killing GIF is a UX problem, not a format problem. I've talked about this before [0], but the big problem for me is that video is just difficult as hell. Compared to a GIF, it is just that much harder to save a video on a phone, and then upload it the same way as an image. Try to save a "GIF" from Twitter or from GIPHY - it's a /huge/ pain. Whatever the GIF killer is will need to pass the right click t…

Which is sad because webm in browsers already passes the right click test but websites have started a trend of blocking users from saving content so they choose to share a link instead which brings in more ad views.

When I want to copy an image from Instagram I have to use the dev tools to find it.

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#198

Post by cookiecaper »

silversconfused wrote: post #88
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the size issue, GIF only support 256 colors per frame, so photos and real-life videos almost always have visible dithering artifacts. It's a terribly shitty format, but remains popular because it has universal support and so works with no fuss. We need to get the same amount of support for a better format.

Unless you're willing to backport that support to 10+ year old browsers, it will never happen. You need UNIVERSAL support. Edge cases, corner cases, and plain old "bad ideas" included. This is what the incumbent has going for it.

The polyfill principle addresses this. As long as transparent fallbacks exist, there's no reason new technology can't be rolled out for the benefit of the significant userbase that can take advantage of it.

Anyone who cares about their data bill should be asking very serious questions about why we're still stuck with the massively inefficient 32-year-old GIF format as the only widely supported way to display an inline animation, especially as many superior alternatives like FLIF, BPG, etc. have been released over the last several years.

GIFs waste absolutely ungodly quantities of bandwidth. Any semi-modern video codec is at least an order of magnitude more efficient. Any way you slice it, the continued dominance of GIF is, at best, an egregious oversight, and it has a direct dollar impact on anyone with a metered connection (this is your phone, but increasingly likely to be your home connection too).

As a community, we need to make an alternative to GIF a real priority.

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#199

Post by HocusLocus »

1995: Compuserve/Unisys is becoming obnoxious!

1996: The GIF KILLER is going to be PNG! (We wait for animation. The PNG committee fails to deliver, they had a LZ method not covered by patent, they had the world cheering them on -- and having myself seen some of the listserv emails back then, some of the committee had asshole reasons thinly disguised like someone didn't like blinking banner ads.)

2001: The GIF killer is going to be MNG! (Oh now simple animation is too hardz! We're going to dump a kitchen sink of video features into it! Later! The rest of us have given up on the PNG committee) The GIF KILLER is going to be APNG! (Says Mozilla, not too convincingly but they did deliver something)

[embarrassing span of time passes]

2007: (The world gave up on all that. GIF is still alive)

[Interestingly, within this time the only other embed besides GIF that loops smoothly is Flash, and --- surprise -- it is universally hated by the Beautiful People]

[embarrassing span of time passes]

2016: With stupid player and JS tricks Geniuses loop video files that stutter and jump at the loop point and pretend they're GIFs. We have millions of colors but crappy loop stitches.

2019: GIF is still alive! Who'da thunk it. We have crappy 256 dither barf BUT perfect loop stitches! Because extending the simple concept to 16 million colors waaaay back in 1996 was just too advanced for the human race.

Let's have a round of applause for the PNG committee.

/SARC fuelled by some frustrating web development compromises

Re: It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

#200

Post by clouddrover »

echelon wrote: post #183
paavoova wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can simply save the file and expect it to work everywhere I don't quite follow. This is because the gif is decoded and played. No different than a video. You don't need a proprietary player to loop a video, you just go back to the start of the video. For streaming, this is only problematic for large videos that can't be cached, but the same applies to large gifs. Browsers can loop video, it's just a right-click…

Video isn't superior for sharable, loopable images. Try downloading a video from a popular social network. Can you easily do it without inspecting the source? If it's a two second clip, does it loop on your system? Or does the video player exit / end the stream? This is absolutely a problem that GIF doesn't have. > You don't need a proprietary player to loop a video > You can save any video file just like a gif. Exce…

> Can you easily do it without inspecting the source?

Yes, I use Page Info (Tools menu -> Page Info) in Firefox. It lists all the media assets on the page and you can download the one you want.

The inability to right-click and save a video is less a problem with the video file itself and more a problem with how the page is structured. You can have the same right-click problem with GIFs depending on where they appear in the page structure.

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