MP4/M4V to GIF: Convert Video from MP4/M4V(MPEG-4 Video) to GIF(Animated GIF) with River Past Video Cleaner, MP4/M4V2GIF converter, conversion

What is MP4/M4V?

A video compression standard planned for late 1998. MPEG-4 extends the earlier MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 algorithms with synthesis of speech and video, fractal compression, computer visualisation and artificial intelligence-based image processing techniques.

MPEG.ORG is an excellent source for additional information on MPEG format and usage.

There are several ways to decode MP4 video. Most of the time, having Apple QuickTime installed is sufficient. Occasionally, a file is not compatible with QuickTime. You will need to install CCCP when that happens.

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 encode a video to an animated GIF, you need to have River Past Animated GIF Booster Pack in addition to the video software.

Additional Requirements

To convert from MP4/M4V(MPEG-4 Video) to GIF(Animated GIF) video with River Past Video Cleaner, you must have River Past Animated GIF 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 "MP4 - MPEG-4" 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 MP4 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 "Animated GIF" as the "File Type".

Note: To convert to animated GIF files, you must have River Past GIF/FLC Animation Booster Pack installed.

Change Video Settings

Click on the toggle to the left of the "Video 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 size, and frame rate of the video.

Animated GIF is NOT a video format and is not designed for video playback. It is limited to 256 colors, so the video will be dithered. GIF compression is designed for solid color graphics, so it is not very efficient for video. The resulted animated GIF files are normally much larger than the original video file, given the same resolution and frame rate.

For the above reasons, it is not a good idea to use animated GIF to share your video on the web. Instead, it is an excellent way to display a small moving thumbnail for the link to your video. For this purpose, you should specify the size to around 80 x 60, and frame rate to 2 frames per second for the best result.