Can we ban animated gifs above a tiny size and push everyone to move onto web video?

GIFs are last millennium tech. 256 colour dithered video is shit. It's the digital equivalent of frickin' VHS. It's not even what the format was invented for, and it's been shoe-horned into a solution for web video as a patch-work stop-gap from the Internet's infancy. Now we've invented proper alternatives, nobody's using them, still dragging GIFs along. It's like the Imperial system not being dropped in favour of the Decimal - it's moronic.

As a premiere tech site on the Web, can we set an example for the rest of the Internet and enforce no GIFs, making people use video convertors instead?

Obviously a few small GIFs can make sense such as an animated diagram which compresses moderately efficiently (although even then animated PNG may be better). For all other clips, something like WebM should be used and enforced.

The current no-limits policy on animated GIFs was set in 2006, before WebM and HTML5 existed. It's time for an update.

 

Reddit suggestions

• GfyCat [t] - Originally made for GIF -> WebM conversion, now supports direct uploads (select the 'Simple Upload' option). 15 second duration limit, no filesize limit.
  
  
• Mixtape.moe - General purpose host, similar to Pomf.se. 100MB limit.
  
  
• WebMShare [t] - Host currently in beta, and supports optional auto play/looping/and muting, with the ability to caption submissions. 8MB limit.
  
  
• WebMLand - Host that also doubles as a WebM gallery. Unknown file size limit. Note: videos appear to be deleted after a couple months, likely due to hosting capacity.
  
  
• Uguu.se - General purpose temporary host (1 day expiration). 100MB limit. From the original creator of Pomf.se, useful for non-permanent uploads.
  
  
• HandBeezy - WebM/MP4 host with anonymous comment ability. Unknown file size limit. Note: the homepage always directs to the last user posted video (while NSFW uploads are hidden by default I wouldn't be surprised if some slip through). Includes text-based index of user uploaded videos by title.
  
  
• W0BM - Requires registration to upload AFAIK (haven't tested it yet). Unknown upload limit. Autoplays uploaded videos at random on the home page (unsure if NSFW videos are included in the default randomization but a heads up). Also includes an experimental live comments panel.

Not tried any as I don't upload clips. Don't know what the workflow is for GIFs or how WebM compares. As I understand it, GfyCat converts to a WebM stream, and calls it a 'GIF'. The GIF is only served if the viewing platform doesn't support WebM.

 

That seems to be what Gfycat is doing.

 

Seems to be a fault with the Media insert code on XenForo. Adding your video as Media produces this embedded code:

Code:

[MEDIA=gfycat]gifs[/MEDIA]

It needs to be:

Code:

[MEDIA=gfycat]height=360;id=FrayedAbandonedKoodoo;width=640[/MEDIA]

 

When I did my degree in Comp Sci, I had to write some report on some software or other. My tutor handed it back with nothing but English 'corrections', including a complaint I used the term 'squiggly brackets' instead of 'braces' - not a single remark about the actual content of my paper and the code quality. I responded with an email marking his marking, pointing out that 'squiggly brackets' is perfectly acceptable to describe them (they are squiggly in shape, and brackets), along with 'eg.' being permissible in contemporary language as well as the traditional 'e.g.' he 'corrected' me on, giving reference to OED pages supporting my choices.

What a dumb waste of three years that was...