GIFs from Videos

How to create GIF files from your video clips

The world wide web just turned 20. Even older than the www is the GIF file format. The format is flawed in many ways, its limited to 256 colours. The compression isn't very good and it used to be patented. Now the patent has expired and even if the format has some flaws there are still situations when gif is the right format to use.

The two huge advantages of the GIF format is that it supports animations and that it is supported by all versions of all web browsers. Since no plugins or special codecs are required to play the GIF they just simply work. And even if a gif might be a bit larger than for example a short flash file the load time is often offset by the time it takes to load and initialize the flash player.

You can use GIF files where no other format works.

I created a simple tool to convert a video clip to a GIF file including converting it to 256 colours and resizing it. You can also add single images or create the animation from single files.

Download Video-GIF here