GIF to RM: Convert Video from GIF(Animated GIF) to RM(RealMedia) with River Past Video Cleaner, GIF2RM converter, conversion

What is GIF?

Animated GIF is not really a video format. It is a sequence of GIF frames stringed together. Due to the 256-color limitation of GIF, the color is dithered. The compression is not that great, so the file size tend to be large given the frame rate and resolution.

However, since GIF is supported by all web browsers without any add-on, it is a great way to create small video thumbnails. Generally, the resolution should be kept small (80x60, for example), the frame rate should be kept low (4 fps, for example), and the duration should be kept under a few seconds.

Animated GIF is not really a video format. It uses 256-color GIF compression, with low quality and relatively large files. It is not suitable for video playback. However, since it is supported by all web browsers without any add-on's, it is a great format for video thumbnails and should be used for this purpose only.

To convert from animated GIF to a regular video file, you need to have Apple QuickTime installed.

What is RM?

A streaming technology developed by RealNetworks for transmitting live video over the Internet. RealVideo uses a variety of data compression techniques and works with both normal IP connections as well as IP Multicast connections.

More information is available on RealNetwork web site.

To convert other video formats to RealMedia, you will need River Past RealMedia Booster Pack in addition to your video software.

Additional Requirements

To convert from GIF(Animated GIF) to RM(RealMedia) video with River Past Video Cleaner, you must have River Past RealMedia Booster Pack installed.

Launch River Past Video Cleaner

Once River Past Video Cleaner is installed properly, launch Video Cleaner.

Add File

Click on the "Add File" button on the tool bar. The standard file open dialog appears. Select "GIF - Animated GIF (*.gif)" in its "Files of type" combo box.

Select the file you want to convert and click "Open". The file will be added to the conversion file list.

Note: To convert from Animated GIF files, you must have Apple QuickTime installed.

River Past Video Cleaner

Select output format

Use the setting panel on the bottom of the window to control the output format. Click on the toggle to the left of the "Output Format" label to expand the panel. Select "RM - RealMedia" as the "File Type".

Note: To convert to RealMedia, you must have River Past RealMedia Booster Pack installed.

Change Audience

The audience specifies the target audience for your video streaming. It is normally bitrate based for streaming, or quality based if you just want to store the video for local playback. For example, to enable users of 512k DSL to play the video from internet, select "512k DSL or Cable" as the audience.

Change Video Settings

Click on the toggle to the left of the "RealVideo Settings" label to expand the panel.

Select "Specify" under "Size" and/or "Frame rate" to enter the video resolution and/or frame rate.

You can change the compressor, quality, size, and frame rate of the video.

RealVideo uses temporal compression. This means, only key frames contains complete information about the video frame. All other frames contains the difference from previous frame or frames. A "Key Frame" of 15 means there will be one key frame every 15 frames. Larger key frame setting will reduce the file size, but reduce the quality of all the none-key frames.

Change the "Mode" and "Complexity" settings according to your content so the RealVideo encoder can optimize its algorithm accordingly.

Change Audio Settings

Click on the toggle to the left of the "RealAudio Settings" label to expand the panel.

Select the audio compressor for the conversion. You may also change the sample rate, channel (stereo or mono), and bits/sample. You can also leave the setting to "Automatic" so the software choose the best settings depending on the original material.

Change the "Mode" and "Complexity" settings according to your content so the RealAudio encoder can optimize its algorithm accordingly.