Re:Building a New Image Format
by SeppoErviala on Thursday November 22, 2012 @04:03AM
(#4818060)
Have you seen how people use gif animations? Video is completely different format than animated images in today's internet. If video formats were preferable, things would have already changed.
Animated images have several advantages:
-Almost all places that support images support also animated image
-Can be downloaded and reposted (as opposed to canvas)
-No worry about audio, there is no audio
-Seamless looping
-Auto play everywhere
-Variable frame rate
These features could be achieved in a video format, but how would you convince websites that support images to support video with these characteristics?
For example, I would never let people upload autoplaying, looping videos as their avatars or as part of their comment unless I could be 100% sure that there will be no audio. I would have to inspect the video for audio and I would need different handling for images and videos.
Until Mozilla finally ships H.264 using <video> means you have to double-encode every single file, once using comparatively primitive tools, or use Flash as a fallback for Firefox and IE8. Until then, GIF files are much easier to work with.
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head where it's preferable is if you needed to do a video with an alpha channel. But this is more codec related than a problem with the concept itself.