Re:Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likel...
by efreak on Sunday May 23, 2021 @02:05PM
(#27257116)
Looking this up led me to some interesting unrelated facts about gif animation:
1. animation isn't technically intended by the gif format [0]:
> Although GIF was not designed as an animation medium, its ability to store multiple images in one file naturally suggested using the format to store the frames of an animation sequence. To facilitate displaying animations, the GIF89a spec added the Graphic Control Extension (GCE), which allows the images (frames) in the file to be painted with time delays, forming a video clip
>
> To enable an animation to loop, Netscape in the 1990s used the Application Extension block (intended to allow vendors to add application-specific information to the GIF file) to implement the Netscape Application Block (NAB).........Most browsers now recognize and support NAB, though it is not strictly part of the GIF89a specification
2. SMIL[1] is an animation alternative I'd never heard of for the browser.
1. animation isn't technically intended by the gif format [0]:
> Although GIF was not designed as an animation medium, its ability to store multiple images in one file naturally suggested using the format to store the frames of an animation sequence. To facilitate displaying animations, the GIF89a spec added the Graphic Control Extension (GCE), which allows the images (frames) in the file to be painted with time delays, forming a video clip > > To enable an animation to loop, Netscape in the 1990s used the Application Extension block (intended to allow vendors to add application-specific information to the GIF file) to implement the Netscape Application Block (NAB).........Most browsers now recognize and support NAB, though it is not strictly part of the GIF89a specification
2. SMIL[1] is an animation alternative I'd never heard of for the browser.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Animated_GIF [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integr...