MP4 to GIF
Turn a clip of MP4 video into an animated GIF. GIF displays anywhere an image does, including comment boxes and chat clients that block video, and it charges you for that: 256 colours per frame and a file often larger than the video it came from. MP4 is usually H.264 at a sane bitrate, so it decodes fast and the frame timing is regular, which is the easy case for a clean loop. Runs on your own Vistalyth Tools instance. Files never reach a third party.
Features
- Trim to a start and end point before the GIF is built
- Frame rate and width control, the two knobs that actually decide the size
- Per-clip optimised palette to limit banding inside GIF's 256 colours
- Handles what MP4 actually contains without a separate decode step
- Your MP4 files are processed on your own server and never uploaded anywhere
What you can do
- Make a short loop for a README, issue thread, or chat where video will not embed
- Cut a reaction clip out of a longer MP4
- Produce an autoplaying preview for somewhere that strips video tags
Self-hosted. Your files never leave your network.
Vistalyth Tools runs entirely on your own infrastructure. Files processed with MP4 to GIF are never uploaded to third-party servers. Deploy a single Docker container and process files with full privacy, no watermarks, and no usage limits. Open source under AGPL-3.0.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is my GIF bigger than the MP4 it came from?
- Because GIF stores frames with no motion compensation, while modern video codecs encode only what changed. A 10-second GIF at full frame rate can easily beat the source. Cut the length, then the width, then the frame rate.
- Why does the colour look banded?
- GIF allows 256 colours per frame, and gradients and skin tones suffer most. If the destination takes video or WebP, both look far better at a fraction of the size.
- Any tips when the source is MP4?
- Its constant frame rate means you can halve to 12fps by taking every other frame, with no judder in the result.
- What length works well?
- Under about 5 seconds, at 10-15fps and around 480px wide, keeps most GIFs manageable.
Ready to try MP4 to GIF?
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