Animated .GIF: Video or Image?

[McDave]

What about silent movies (like from the old times).

[The_Wizard]

I'm saying Image :)

[starburst1980]

Tech it is a video.

Any normal AVI can be split up into frames of images. This is basically what a GIF is.

[revvo]

it's a crappy 256-colour animated image, possibly taken from a video. Can't do it the other way around, can you?

[Srugie Veteran]

Image for sure.

[Unisyst]

Gif = series of images played consecutively which is treated as an image.

Video = series of images treated as a video.

So quite almost one and the same. Gif might even be likened to a hybrid of a single image and a video.

[gunky]

a gif is a container file, not a video or an image

the thing it contains could be an image

or the things it contains could make a video

[ganjamigo]

a gif is a container file, not a video or an image

the thing it contains could be an image

or the things it contains could make a video

what kind of video file isn't a container file?

An image is a single frame from any source of media, be it an animated gif, an avi, streamed media, or whatever it is. While video is any set of single images played in a serialized manner, regardless of sound, or file format.

Animated gifs can contain and play images/frames, played together to make video.

Animated gifs however do not contain a sound layer, as most standard video container files tend to.

And for the record, while animated gifs can only show 256 colors, they can be any 256 colors from the 16 bit color palette, unlike standard 256 color graphics.

[Wolter]

what kind of video file isn't a container file?

A video doesn't have to be a file. It can be contained on a VHS, Beta, or 3/4 inch cassette, or even a roll of film.

And what kind of file isn't considered a container, anyway? All files contain bytes (except for empty files).

Edited June 6, 2009 by Wolter

[xor4200]

It's both.

:shiftyninja:

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

Adobe Photoshop CS4 says it is an image. Paint.net says that it is an image. MS Paint says that it is an image. Show me one graphics program that shows it as a Video file.

[xor4200]

Adobe Photoshop CS4 says it is an image. Paint.net says that it is an image. MS Paint says that it is an image. Show me one graphics program that shows it as a Video file.

A format that can display video is a video format.

But since it was originally intended to be an image format, it's both.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

A format that can display video is a video format.

But since it was originally intended to be an image format, it's both.

Wrong, if this were true then I would be able to play a .gif file in WMP.

[xor4200]

Wrong, if this were true then I would be able to play a .gif file in WMP.

I don't have any problems opening an animated .gif in Windows Media Player v.11.

[I am Reid]

Wrong, if this were true then I would be able to play a .gif file in WMP.

Thats not a very good argument.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 says it is an image. Paint.net says that it is an image. MS Paint says that it is an image. Show me one graphics program that shows it as a Video file.

Yes, everyone understands that. That is not the issue. The issue is that a .gif meets every requirement to be a video, but no one considers it to be one. Why not?

[Nicholas-c Veteran]

"image/gif"

Looks like an image here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format

"Animation" would be the correct term really, Video isn't appropriate, Video usually has audio.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Nicholas-c

[xor4200]

"image/gif"

Looks like an image here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format

"Animation" would be the correct term really, Video isn't appropriate, Video usually has audio.

Video without audio is video.

If I film something in vintage silent film stock, it is video.

Video comes from the Latin videre (to see).

[Angel Blue01]

What a stupid question, a video by definition you can pause, rewind (random access in the past), fastforward (random access forward), maybe even change the playback speed backwards and forwards. Can't do any of that with a GIF. :rolleyes:

[I am Reid]

What a stupid question, a video by definition you can pause, rewind (random access in the past), fastforward (random access forward), maybe even change the playback speed backwards and forwards. Can't do any of that with a GIF. :rolleyes:

Download quciktime, right click a .gif and select open with Quick time. Then after doing that come back to this thread and reply to my post.

[Bag]

Personally id say an animated gif acts more like a slideshow than a video as after all its stored as a set standard gif images, which it simply moves through. Additionally you interact with gifs like you would any other image, in html you embed them using the image tags for example.

Gif's are also edited and made using image editing software as opposed to video editing software :p

So I'm going to go with image.

[Mathachew Veteran]

Image