Converting Video into Animated Images (and Other Videos) With FFmpeg (For The Most Part) was first published on Farai's Codelab.
This post will supplement an upcoming post on why you should stop using GIFs in favor of newer image and video formats. Here’s how to generate animated images in various media formats using FFMpeg.
Table of Contents
Preparing The Source Clip For Further Conversion
First thing to do is convert it to an uncompressed y4m video, slicing it up and setting the framerate as necessary:
ffmpeg -ss <start_point> -t <duration_from_start> -i <source_media> -an -vf 'scale=<width>:<height>,setpts=<stretch_factor>*PTS,fps=<framerate>' -pix_fmt yuv420p <raw_input>.y4m
What the option flags mean:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
-ss |
Marks the start position of the video stream as a time duration |
-t |
Specifies the duration of the datastream from -ss (or 0) as a time duration. Use both -ss and -t before -i to limit the video input. |
-an |
Removes audio |
-vf |
The video filters |
scale |
Sets the w idth and h eight of the video |
setpts |
Sets the presentation timestamps (PTS) for the video. Used to speed up and slow down video |
fps |
Specifies the framerate for the video. |
pix_fmt |
Sets the color format. Not necessary and the only reason I specified it is because I had issues in an earlier draft |
Note, if you are going to set a framerate for a GIF, it has a delay between frames in hundreths of a second (fps=100/delay). So:
| Delay | Framerate |
|---|---|
| 1 | 10pfs |
| 2 | 50fps |
| 3 | 33fps |
| 4 | 25fps |
| 5 | 20fps |
| 6 | 15fps |
Images
GIF
ffmpeg -i <source_input>.y4m -filter_complex "[0:v] split [a][b];[a] palettegen [p];[b][p] paletteuse" -loop 0 <output>.gif
Simply put the -filter_complex flag in this case generates a color palette to use in the GIF. See GIPHY’s Engineering blog on how to make GIFs to explain the flag.
You can leave it out, resulting in a much smaller GIF (at the expense of quality).
WebP
ffmpeg -i <raw_input>.y4m -loop 0 -q:v 100 -compression_level 6 <output>.webp
q:v is the image quality, from 0 to 100. It’ll be much smaller, but WebP can get blocky if you push the quality too hard.
Sequenced AVIF (Chrome For Now)
ffmpeg doesn’t support writing to AVIF containers when I wrote this, so you nee to use avifenc to do this.
avifenc <raw_input>.y4m <output>.avif
Videos
From here on out, I won’t go over the options too much since there’s a lot to consider, most of which I don’t understand so I’ll link to the respective encoding guide if you want more options.
AVC/h.264 MP4 (widest support)
ffmpeg -i <raw_input.y4m -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow .<output>.mp4
The preset flag tries to find the best tradeoff between quality and compression at a given bitrate and file size.
HEVC/h.265 (WebKit)
ffmpeg -i <raw_input>.y4m -c:v libx265 -preset veryslow -tag:v hvc1 <output>.mp4
You need the -tag:v hvc1 for the video to play in Safari. Thanks Aaron!.
preset is the same as in AVC.
VP8/VP9 (Android)
Switch the vp8 for vp9 depending on which one you choose. vp9 is newer so better, although it doesn’t have the support of vp8 (although it’s reasonable).
ffmpeg -i <raw_input>.y4m -c:v vp8 <output>.webm
VP8 Encoding Guide/VP9 Encoding Guide
AV1 Video (Chrome and Firefox)
Encoding AV1 will use a lot of CPU and it takes a very long time; more so on my shitty laptop encoding at 0.1fps.
ffmpeg -i <raw_input>.y4m -strict -2 -c:v libaom-av1 .<raw_input>.webm
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, consider supporting my work by:
- sharing my work,
- refering me for a job (or hire me for freelance work),
- sponsoring me on Patreon,
- buying Me A Coffee,
- buying Me A Ko-Fi,
- sending me a tip on Paypal,
-
buy something on Amazon with my affiliate link (I’ll earn a commision on this as an amazon affiliate), - or buy a domain on Namecheap with my affiliate link.
You can also subscribe to my newsletter.
Have feedback? Send an email to gandiyafarai+feedback at gmail dot com
Top comments (0)