Hacker News Reader

Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

Most chat apps convert GIFs to video formats like WEBM to save money. https://c.tenor.com/bD9vHNiR1rQAAAAd/boom-mind-blown.webm It also supports higher frame rates and more colors.

Edit: A better comparison is https://c.tenor.com/3eIvVsG3yPYAAAPo/the-universe-tim-and-er... vs https://c.tenor.com/3eIvVsG3yPYAAAAd/the-universe-tim-and-er...

View on HN

Or it's just a GIF:

    $ wget "https://c.tenor.com/bD9vHNiR1rQAAAAd/boom-mind-blown.webm"
    --2022-08-12 09:39:06--  https://c.tenor.com/bD9vHNiR1rQAAAAd/boom-mind-blown.webm
    Resolving c.tenor.com (c.tenor.com)... 142.251.46.225
    Connecting to c.tenor.com (c.tenor.com)|142.251.46.225|:443... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 6381102 (6.1M) [image/gif]

The first url just returns GIF regardless of the extension given. https://c.tenor.com/bD9vHNiR1rQAAAAd/boom-mind-blown.asdf is also a gif.

The mp4 of it is at https://c.tenor.com/Oc4nf8N08jIAAAPo/mind-blow-galaxy.mp4, and is 12.1 MiB to the HD gif's 17 MiB (https://c.tenor.com/Oc4nf8N08jIAAAAC/mind-blow-galaxy.gif). As you noted, the SD gif is only 6.1 MiB.

It's lame but common for an app to support GIF but not WEBM as input while converting all GIF to WEBM behind the scenes.

I work with GIFs sometimes still on production sites.

I know Webm and other formats might be heavily recommended, but there are a ton of issues currently in the browser ecosystem with videos and autoplay rules (looking at iOS specifically as a major problem causer here...). Those issues can make webm/etc more trouble than they are worth unless you're operating at a really large scale, or you're willing to lose your animations for a decent percentage of users.

There's no autoplay issues on iOS, just make sure it's muted. It's the same rules as on Android.

If an ios device is in low power mode it won't autoplay a muted video but it will display a gif.

That videos might not autoplay is a feature. That I can’t stop GIFs from autoplaying without disabling playing at all is a bug. (One that I don’t expect to ever be fixed, or even widely acknowledged as a bug, but a bug nonetheless.)

While I agree with you, the problem here as a lack of consistency between browsers, which leads to using the least common denominator from 1990s.

Ideally all browsers should have uniform means to control animated graphics (allow or not autoplay, stop all or stop a particular one, etc), and a uniform way to show the intent (autoplay or not, play on hover, etc).

There's nothing special about webm, it's just a video format. GIFs are also converted to MP4s.

but not drag and drop most notably

for some reason, chrome network tab says they are both 6.4MB. or is that normal?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com