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It's time to replace GIFs with AV1 video

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161–170 of 327 posts

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

#161
I don't think it can be killed unless (unordered)

- looping is solved and convenient to configure

- it can be cross media barriers (copied into a text, copied into an e-mail, etc.)

- it pleases the bandwidth gods (are gifs usually smaller? i know that they have a limited color palette)

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

#162

The most important part of GIFs for me is that they behave like images in browsers. They are always auto-playing with no concept of play and pause. You can drag and drop them from a browser to your desktop to save them. You can save an entire page and have all the image files save with it. I've never had this work for webm or other video formats. You could even argue that GIFs not being a video with no video decoding…

I had to turn off GIFs and animated emoticons in Slack because it was making my fan spin up and consuming a significant amount of CPU.

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

#163
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…

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).

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

#164
Okay, I'm on board. But what container am I meant to be using for my AV1 content? I see the value of a limited subset of mkv, e.g. webm, but webm is too limited in my opinion. It has no facilities for soft subtitles for instance. How is that an acceptable state of affairs? That's an accessibility issue.

And yes, I know websites can send subtitles separately then render the subtitles over the element, but that's no excuse for an ostensibly modern media container to not support subtitle tracks.

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

#165
post #162

The most important part of GIFs for me is that they behave like images in browsers. They are always auto-playing with no concept of play and pause. You can drag and drop them from a browser to your desktop to save them. You can save an entire page and have all the image files save with it. I've never had this work for webm or other video formats. You could even argue that GIFs not being a video with no video decoding…

I had to turn off GIFs and animated emoticons in Slack because it was making my fan spin up and consuming a significant amount of CPU.

That's because of Slack, not because of .gif files.

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

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Looping is up to the video player, not the format or container. What "video formats" have looping as metadata? Gifs only have a loop flag so static images can be displayed instead of looped indefinitely as video.

GIF lets you control the loop count and playback speed. It's baked in when authored and is useful. You can simply save the file and expect it to work everywhere - dead simple.

The Internet has voted in favor of looping, "GIF-like" moving images. Platforms try to emulate this with proprietary video players. Some have sound (wanted or not), some of the video players prohibit copying, and none of the files work as simply as GIF for sharing.

We need something more modern than GIF, but that has playability baked in. Something that browsers treat as a moving image and not a video.

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

#167
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

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

#168
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Challenge accepted. https://www.hampsterdance.com/classics/originaldance.htm Just did it on my 2011 MacBook Air. Pushes all four cores up... about 15%.

For best results, use a Slack channel, or a forum reply page with an array of animated smileys.

To complain about GIF usage saturating your CPU when running an Electron app is to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

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

#170
post #77

The most important part of GIFs for me is that they behave like images in browsers. They are always auto-playing with no concept of play and pause. You can drag and drop them from a browser to your desktop to save them. You can save an entire page and have all the image files save with it. I've never had this work for webm or other video formats. You could even argue that GIFs not being a video with no video decoding…

> It may take longer to load, but I can have 100+ GIFs playing at once with no impact to my CPU. I don't know what you're talking about really... I was just using Google Slides today and both Firefox and Chrome went to 250% CPU usage, only because there was one slide with a 5 seconds full screen recording GIF. I begged to the person who added it to turn that to a video.

Yep, browsing pages laden with too many GIFs is my favorite way to have a hot laptop that sounds like it's getting ready to lift off and get my low battery warning to pop up.
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