Option to create video gifs on YouTube tested currently

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 12, 2014
Music and Video, Youtube
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Big news today for anyone who loves animated gifs and YouTube videos. Google is testing the creation of gif files on YouTube currently on select channels.

Instead of having to rely on add-ons or third-party software to create those gifs, it may soon be possible to create gifs using any video hosted by YouTube directly.

One of the channels where this is currently tested is the PBS Idea Channel.

When you open a video of the channel it looks like any other YouTube video first, but when you click on the Share link to display sharing options, you find a new gif tab there.

This tab is only available on channels that participate in the test. When you click on gif there, the following screen opens up.

A slider is displayed at the top that you can use to select the start and end position of the gif that you want to create. The thumbnail is automatically adjusted when you change the time to reflect the new position.

You can use the start and end text fields instead if you need to fine tune the selection as the slider is not well suited for that.

The only other option that you have is to add top and bottom text to the gif that you want to create. This text is displayed on the gif automatically when it is played back.

A click on create gif starts the creation process which takes a couple of seconds usually. Google displays a direct link and embed code on the next page.

The embed code can be embedded into blog posts, websites or forums for example while the direct link opens the gif directly when clicked on.

Note: Gifs can only be created on YouTube if you are signed in to your account. While you still see Gif listed under sharing options, you are asked to sign in to YouTube before you can use it and create the gif.

Since this is a limited test, it is not clear yet if Google will roll out the feature to all videos on the site or remove it again from it. (via Caschy)

Now You: What's your take on the feature? Would you rather see an option to share mp4 clips?

Summary
Option to create video gifs on YouTube tested currently
Article Name
Option to create video gifs on YouTube tested currently
Description
Google is testing a new share option on YouTube currently that allows logged in users to create animated gifs on the site directly.
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Comments

  1. XenoSilvano said on December 13, 2014 at 11:15 am
    Reply

    The topic I am about to go into is slightly besides the point…

    A substantial amount of videos on Youtube are mainly focused on the audio stream (such as videos made of the music tracks from albums), those sorts of videos usually display only a single image or a succession of images as the video stream (an image or group of images a content creator typically inserts into their video project using a video editing program that then encodes the entire project into video), which is an necessary waste.

    I do not understand why Youtube, up until this very day, still does not allow content creators to produce slideshows rather than just videos, it would be less demanding on a consumer’s network bandwidth in these cases if only the audio was streamed and imagines loaded and presented progressively in the place of video the stream.

  2. Dwight Stegall said on December 12, 2014 at 3:39 pm
    Reply

    Too bad we can’t get Facebook to allow gif or animated png images.

    1. webfork said on December 16, 2014 at 5:14 pm
      Reply

      Agreed. Also too bad Chrome won’t support APNG w/out a plugin — would save a lot of bandwidth for Youtube to share things in a same-quality, lower-file-size format.

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