Serve Videos Instead of GIFs • Hacker News Board

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#161

Post by pornel » Sun, May 17, 2020, 10:39 AM UTC

overeater wrote: post #19

birktj wrote: post #5

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

Yes, and would Apple please support WebP in Safari as the only remaining holdout? Before we all just boycott Safari and go ahead and use WebP anyways.

Safari can play MP4 directly from , so it's actually best of all browsers in this area.

You should be mad at Google, who invented a whole new format based on obsolete VP8, which is even less efficient than its VP8-based WebM precursor. And it's literally because they couldn't make their VP9-capable decoder work in . Animated WebP is Chrome's tech debt.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#162

Post by brenden2 » Sun, May 17, 2020, 10:43 AM UTC

chaosbutters314 wrote: post #108

FalconSensei wrote: post #58

I already said that before and I'll do it again: it won't work until we make videos act like gifs, which act like images. The video per se won't loop if I save it in my computer or phone. I can't drag and drop, right click, long tap. To have anything replacing gif you need THE EXACT SAME BEHAVIOUR, EVERYWHERE. It doesn't matter for the consumer whose fault it is: encoding, the app, how the file is created. The user u…

I'm glad someone else thinks like this, the other devs on my team get so caught up on the little things in the application we are building and all this little crap the user won't care about if it doesn't work as they expect. I end up being the only person saying "If I was the user, I'd expect this. And if I was doing this, I expect this behavior". Instead, they act as if the user has a PhD in cs, and instead, the use…

This is a good point, and it's something I have often come across with various experts. Some take it to an extreme and assume everyone else is dumb and they're the only one who knows what's good for them. I'm not sure what the correct term for this type of thinking is, but I've always disliked it and tried to help people actually empathize with the other side. And yet, people still like to go around saying "people are stupid" etc.

If I were to guess, I think the internet has somewhat helped make this worse, because it separates some of the human connection from your everyday interactions. If you can't read someone's emotions on their face, and you're just reading their words on a support ticket, it's very easy to dismiss them as dumb or foolish when in fact it's you who does not understand the problem from their perspective.

I guess part of the problem might be that what's obvious to someone who's already encountered that problem may be non-obvious to someone who's entirely new to a particular domain (or product or whatever).

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#163

Post by huhtenberg » Sun, May 17, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

> Each image in a GIF is limited to a color pallete of 256 colors

Don't let this fool you into thinking that you cannot render a true color image with GIF!

It's 256 colors PER FRAME, each of which allows for... dum-dum-dum... TRANSPARENCY. Do you see the potential or do you see the potential?

Get all your colors, split into 256 groups and then render all pixels of each group as a separate frame, leaving the rest transparent. Set delay to 0 and you will have a true color GIF in no time.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#164

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 17, 2020, 10:47 AM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #131

FalconSensei wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you try to save, you get a webm or mp4 video

webm seems like a fine gif replacement. I don't know why Apple is such a little bitch about formats though.

[deleted]

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#165

Post by casefields » Sun, May 17, 2020, 10:51 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #85

Not sure why he put this at the end: > One final note: according to Wilhite, GIF is pronounced with a soft “G,” like “jif.” That settles the never-ending debate for me. Now all he's done is make 1/2 of the population immediately discount everything else he said, regardless of its merit.

Because everyone knows Gin is for drinking, gif is for watching, gym is for exercising.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#166

Post by londons_explore » Sun, May 17, 2020, 11:25 AM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #103

FalconSensei wrote: post #58

I already said that before and I'll do it again: it won't work until we make videos act like gifs, which act like images. The video per se won't loop if I save it in my computer or phone. I can't drag and drop, right click, long tap. To have anything replacing gif you need THE EXACT SAME BEHAVIOUR, EVERYWHERE. It doesn't matter for the consumer whose fault it is: encoding, the app, how the file is created. The user u…

I think there's a chance this can happen when AV1 starts to gain adoption. Webp had a chance - you can have well encoded, looping video in a .webp container that operates exactly like an image. The issue was lack of adoption - it never took hold due to Apple not adopting it in their ecosystem. AV1 has support from every major player in tech, and .avif images support gif functionality just fine. Until that happens tho…

AV1 (AVIF) is going to hit the same lack of adoption. Apple is already steaming ahead with HEIF files, while Google is stalling implementing them, and vice versa.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#167

Post by keiferski » Sun, May 17, 2020, 11:31 AM UTC

Videos are dramatically worse on mobile, especially if you want to save the GIF/image. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to save a video to an iOS device, while saving an animated GIF is easy.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#168

Post by bertman » Sun, May 17, 2020, 11:31 AM UTC

alixanderwang wrote: post #57

The ffmpeg command will default produce one that can only be decoded on Chrome. You should specify a codec supported by most browsers (`-c:v libx264`).

If ffmpeg has been built with libx264 support, than this is the default encoder for mp4 video.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#169

Post by thedonkeycometh » Sun, May 17, 2020, 12:05 PM UTC

A video cannot be right clicked and actually creating a video for a meme is a lot more work.

Re: Serve Videos Instead of GIFs

#170

Post by whywhywhywhy » Sun, May 17, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #103

FalconSensei wrote: post #58

I already said that before and I'll do it again: it won't work until we make videos act like gifs, which act like images. The video per se won't loop if I save it in my computer or phone. I can't drag and drop, right click, long tap. To have anything replacing gif you need THE EXACT SAME BEHAVIOUR, EVERYWHERE. It doesn't matter for the consumer whose fault it is: encoding, the app, how the file is created. The user u…

I think there's a chance this can happen when AV1 starts to gain adoption. Webp had a chance - you can have well encoded, looping video in a .webp container that operates exactly like an image. The issue was lack of adoption - it never took hold due to Apple not adopting it in their ecosystem. AV1 has support from every major player in tech, and .avif images support gif functionality just fine. Until that happens tho…

>The issue was lack of adoption - it never took hold due to Apple not adopting it in their ecosystem

It's not just Apple, webp files can't even be opened by Photoshop. You're basically making proprietary Chrome image files if you actually use that format.