# Should Discourse convert GIFs to mp4 video files?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-discourse-convert-gifs-to-mp4-video-files/16739>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [Junho 21, 2014, 8:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-discourse-convert-gifs-to-mp4-video-files/16739 "2014-06-21T08:24:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 16

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [Março 11, 2015, 7:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-discourse-convert-gifs-to-mp4-video-files/16739/16 "2015-03-11T07:01:27Z")

</div>

A quick update,

Chrome does a terrible job with huge gif files, they can choke the web browser and cause all sorts of nasties not to mention mobile paying a hefty price on traffic and blowing data plans.

Gifv technique championed by imgur is good

`https://i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.gifv`

```plaintext
<video id="video" autoplay="autoplay" muted="muted" preload="auto" loop="loop" poster="//i.imgur.com/zvATqgsh.jpg">
        
     <source src="//i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.webm" type="video/webm">
     <source src="//i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.mp4" type="video/mp4">
     
     <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="370" width="660" data="//s.imgur.com/include/flash/gifplayer.swf?imgur_video=//i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.mp4&amp;imgur_width=660&amp;imgur_height=370&amp;imgur_url=//imgur.com/zvATqgs">
         <param name="movie" value="//s.imgur.com/include/flash/gifplayer.swf?imgur_video=//i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.mp4&amp;imgur_width=660&amp;imgur_height=370&amp;imgur_url=//imgur.com/zvATqgs">
         <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never">
         <param name="flashvars" value="height=370&amp;width=660">
         <param name="width" value="370">
         <param name="height" value="660">
         <param name="version" value="0">
         <param name="scale" value="scale">
         <param name="salign" value="tl">
         <param name="wmode" value="opaque">
     </object>
 </video>

```

It’s really just a video element with a bunch of fallbacks.

I see a few actionable things we can do here:

1. If people hotlink anything larger than say 10mb force a “click” to actually download the image and hide it behind a preview

2. get ffmpeg into our base image and do the webm and mp4 conversion for all animated gifs, don’t worry about the flash fallback.

3. Offer an integration piece with imgur that uses imgur to do this … any gif larger than X gets sent to imgur for recompression. (or use a different service)

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