Serve Videos Instead of GIFs • Hacker News Board

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#21

Post by masklinn » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

junaru wrote: post #10

arkanciscan wrote: post #4

Serve videos as videos. Photo data compresses better with Jpeg. But gifs are still a better option for animated illustrated graphics.

Why is JPEG the de facto lossy compression format for photos? It always bugs me that video formats get something new every 5 or so years yet photos are in JPEGs for decades.

Because by and large it’s good enough outside of special cases.

Video formats get something new pretty much by necessity as resolution and quality increases mean older formats strain links.

Serving a 100k heif instead of a 500k jpeg is not going to materially change much.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#22

Post by percentcer » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

If videos looped seamlessly I'd happily serve videos. Sadly, they do not.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#23

Post by thayne » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #17

birktj wrote: post #5

Isn't this exactly what animated WebP [1] is supposed to address? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebP#Animation

You might as well use APNG then, which is more widely supported too.

I believe webp images are generally smaller in size.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#24

Post by joemi » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #16

lxe wrote: post #14

I can't right click / long tap and copy and paste a video into another app

That’s really an application issue, but god damn is it an annoying one.

Gifs (and videos that people call gifs) wouldn’t be what they are today if it weren’t for their ease of copying/saving and pasting/uploading to somewhere else, which you could similarly call an application feature. So this application issue with video (as implemented in this article) is almost certainly what will stop gifs from being replaced.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#25

Post by MrStonedOne » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #16

lxe wrote: post #14

I can't right click / long tap and copy and paste a video into another app

That’s really an application issue, but god damn is it an annoying one.

No, its a os one.

windows, and most other os's, allow copy and pasting images as image data in the clipboard, but can only handle video links, there is no way to natively copy and paste the video contents.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#26

Post by Ayesh » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #8

Serving videos instead of GIFs is easy to do now with the HTML video element, which is supported almost universally I respectfully disagree. Loading videos instead of GIFs is easy to do now. Serving videos is a nightmarish mess of trying to match divergent, incompatible, sometimes patent-encumbered "standards" against an ever-changing range of browser support taking into account the hardware capabilities of a vast ra…

VP8 in a WebM container is pretty much the lowest bar for most browser support, and comes with no licensing requirements. I'm not disagreeing with the comment about "nightmarish mess". It indeed is one, specially when it comes user-uploaded content.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#27

Post by manigandham » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

percentcer wrote: post #22

If videos looped seamlessly I'd happily serve videos. Sadly, they do not.

They can, and they do. This article shows you an example at the end. What's the issue?

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#28

Post by MrStonedOne » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

I'm still very much in the camp that moving pictures are distinct from video, and am eagerly waiting for a good replacement animated picture format before I move my website over to it.

apng could have been nice, but never took off.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#29

Post by MrStonedOne » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

Ayesh wrote: post #26

Silhouette wrote: post #8

Serving videos instead of GIFs is easy to do now with the HTML video element, which is supported almost universally I respectfully disagree. Loading videos instead of GIFs is easy to do now. Serving videos is a nightmarish mess of trying to match divergent, incompatible, sometimes patent-encumbered "standards" against an ever-changing range of browser support taking into account the hardware capabilities of a vast ra…

VP8 in a WebM container is pretty much the lowest bar for most browser support, and comes with no licensing requirements. I'm not disagreeing with the comment about "nightmarish mess". It indeed is one, specially when it comes user-uploaded content.

I think they are talking about the webserver side requirements for streaming video so the browser will play it.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#30

Post by the8472 » Sat, May 16, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

thayne wrote: post #23

the8472 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might as well use APNG then, which is more widely supported too.

I believe webp images are generally smaller in size.

webp comes in lossy and lossless flavor. unless you want to degrade the gifs you would have to pick lossless and in that case it's not a clear win over apng even if we ignore the compatibility question.