Convert video to high-quality GIF

Gradient-heavy clip that banded in other converters

A sunset pan that turned into visible colour stripes in a single-pass online converter. The two-pass palette samples the actual sunset colours, so the gradient stays smooth.

Settings: Width 480, FPS 15

Pass 1 (palette from your clip):
  -vf fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen=stats_mode=diff

Pass 2 (map frames onto it):
  -lavfi fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos[v];
         [v][1:v]paletteuse=dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5

Result: out.gif — gradient banding gone, colours sampled
from the sunset rather than a generic web palette.

Shrink a too-large GIF without re-shooting

First export was 12 MB. Lower width and FPS, re-run — file size drops roughly with (width^2 x fps).

First export:  Width 720, FPS 24  -> ~12 MB
Retry:         Width 480, FPS 12  -> ~3-4 MB

Why: GIF size scales with pixels-per-frame (width^2)
and frame count (fps x seconds). Halving width and
fps cuts size by roughly 4x x 2x = ~8x in the best case.

UI screen-recording where text must stay readable

Lanczos scaling keeps text edges crisp on downscale. Keep width close to the native capture width so glyphs don't soften.

Capture width 1280 -> set GIF Width 640 (half)
FPS 12 (UI cursor motion reads fine at 12)

Keeps scale=640:-1:flags=lanczos -> sharp text.
Going to Width 320 would soften small fonts; keep
the GIF width >= half the captured width for legible UI.

Trim-then-GIF for a 2-second reaction moment

The GIF tool has no trim. Cut the exact 2 seconds first with the lossless trimmer, then convert only that clip.

Step 1: lossless-trimmer  -> reaction_2s.mp4
        (stream-copy, snaps to nearest keyframe)
Step 2: video-to-gif on reaction_2s.mp4
        Width 400, FPS 15 -> reaction.gif

Result: a tiny GIF because only 2 seconds x 15 fps
= ~30 frames are encoded, not the whole source.

Compare GIF vs animated WebP for a web embed

When the destination is a modern browser (not legacy chat), WebP is ~30% of the GIF size at the same quality. Use the GIF only where WebP isn't supported.

Same clip, Width 480, FPS 15:
  video-to-gif   -> clip.gif   (baseline size)
  video-to-webp  -> clip.webp  (~30% of the GIF)

Use GIF for: Slack/Discord/Reddit/older chat, README
Use WebP for: website hero, Telegram, Signal, modern web

GIF is an old lossless-ish 256-colour-per-frame format with no inter-frame video compression beyond simple frame differencing. A 5 MB H.264 MP4 can easily become a 15 MB GIF. This is normal — lower the width and FPS, or use video-to-webp for a 30%-of-GIF result.

GIF has no audio track, so any sound in the source is silently dropped. There is no warning because GIF cannot carry audio — if you need sound, keep the clip as video or use video-to-webp (also silent) and pair it with the original clip.

This tool has only FPS and Width controls — no in/out points. It converts the entire file you drop in, so a 2-minute clip becomes a huge GIF. Trim first with the lossless trimmer or video-splitter, then convert the short clip.

The width control is capped at 1080 px. GIF was never meant for large frames — past a few hundred pixels the file size becomes impractical for chat or README embeds. If you genuinely need a large animated loop, animated WebP supports larger frames far more efficiently.

dither=bayer:bayer_scale=5 adds an ordered dither pattern to mask the 256-colour limit; on large flat regions (a solid brand colour) the pattern can read as faint texture. This is the standard trade-off for smooth gradients elsewhere — the dither setting is fixed, so reduce the colour complexity of the source or accept the slight grain.

Common containers (.mp4, .mov, .mkv, .webm, .avi, .m4v, .ts) decode fine. An exotic or DRM-protected codec inside the container can fail the first pass with a decode error. Re-encode the source to standard H.264 MP4 first using the transcoder, then convert.

Both passes sample every frame, so a long clip at 30 FPS does roughly double the work of the same clip at 15 FPS. FFmpeg.wasm is CPU-bound in the browser. Lower the FPS or trim shorter for faster turnaround — there is no size cap forcing this, just wall-clock time.

The fps= filter resamples to a constant frame rate, so VFR phone recordings (which vary their frame rate to save power) are normalised to your chosen FPS. Motion stays correct; you don't need to convert VFR to CFR beforehand.

GIF supports only 1-bit (on/off) transparency, not the smooth alpha of WebM/ProRes. Semi-transparent edges flatten against an opaque background and can show hard fringing. For true smooth alpha, use video-to-webp, which preserves a full alpha channel.