gif vs. mp4
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- twokids
I have to deliver animation files to developers. I made an 20 second animation that is 1200x768 and I gave them a 300K mp4. They want me to give them a gif, thinking it will be smaller.
I KNOW that the gif is not a good choice for that size but cannot find documentation explaining the tradeoff, when mp4 is more efficient.
Anyone know this? Or where to read up on this?
- detritus0
perhaps the fact that things like thw following exist?
- monospaced0
gifs have a limited color palette
- and ditheringmonospaced
- also, you don't need documentation, you just need to show them the gif is largermonospaced
- Yeah, Send them both. It won't take you much time or effort.CyBrainX
- bainbridge0
Send .jpg frames.
- bainbridge0
Website development and animation?
- nato0
Thats going to be a frigging gigantic gif.
- vaxorcist0
I'd use firefogg to convert it:
I'd send them a webm and an ogv file, and an mp4, as this combination of all 3 seems to be the standard in HTML5 as I've recently found out....
webm and ogv files can be much smaller than you think....
- fairbaken0
i think they are trying to troll you.
ask for the resolution they want, and if they reply that it should be 720p as you said, then they are trolls..
- vaxorcist0
I don't think they are trying to troll you, I think they may just have no idea....
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
- <-- sadly this. I've worked with a "developer" who believed API was an actual software name that was pronounced appy.hereswhatidid
- akiersky0
300K is pretty small for an mp4, a gif is not going to be any smaller at that resolution.
What's the animation for? I think usually the usage dictates the filetype. A gif might be nice for something very short, or that is part of the interface. But if the animation stands on it's own or has photorealistic elements a video is going to be much better.
Maybe an html5 video with flash fallback, kinda like this:
<video autoplay loop width="1280" height="720">
<source src="video.webm" type="video/webm;">
<source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4;">
<source src="video" type="video/ogg;">
<object width="940" height="529" id="swfFallback">
<param name="movie" value="swfVideo.swf">
.... (other swf fallback stuff)
</object>
</video>- maybe it can be done with 6 colors and at 2 FPS, we don't knowmonospaced
- animatedgif0
The GIF format is designed for images <200 pixels big. The clue is in the fucking name "GIF89a" as in 1989
20 second at 1200x768 could balloon to about 10-20 meg in GIF format and chug like a bastard playing it decoded entirely on the CPU.
Feel sorry for you having to explain this to developers, they really should understand how these formats actually work, it's really not complicated.