How To Create Animated GIFs from MP4 Videos using Command Line

In the digital age, GIFs have become a popular way to express emotions, reactions, and ideas. They are essentially a series of images or soundless video that will loop continuously without anyone having to press play. In this article, we will guide you on how to create animated GIFs from MP4 videos using command line tools.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure that you have the following installed on your system:

• ffmpeg
• ImageMagick
• gifify (Optional)

Using ffmpeg

ffmpeg is a powerful tool that can handle a variety of multimedia data, such as audio, video, and even subtitles. It can convert multimedia files between different formats.

Here’s how you can use ffmpeg to convert an MP4 video to a GIF:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=10,scale=320:-1:flags=lanczos" -c:v gif output.gif

In this command:

• -i input.mp4 specifies the input file.
• -vf "fps=10,scale=320:-1:flags=lanczos" applies video filters to the input file. In this case, fps=10 sets the frame rate to 10 frames per second, scale=320:-1 scales the output to a width of 320 pixels (maintaining the aspect ratio), and flags=lanczos applies the high-quality Lanczos resampling filter.
• -c:v gif sets the output video codec to gif.
• output.gif is the output file.

Using ImageMagick

ImageMagick is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats.

Here’s how you can use ImageMagick to convert an MP4 video to a GIF:

convert -delay 10 -loop 0 input.mp4 output.gif

In this command:

• -delay 10 sets the delay between frames to 10 (which corresponds to a frame rate of 10 frames per second).
• -loop 0 loops the animation indefinitely.
• input.mp4 and output.gif are the input and output files, respectively.

Using gifify

gifify is a shell script that converts videos to GIFs. It wraps around ffmpeg and ImageMagick to provide a simple interface for converting videos to GIFs.

First, install gifify globally with npm:

npm install -g gifify

Then, you can convert the MP4 video to a GIF with the following command:

gifify input.mp4 -o output.gif

In this command, input.mp4 is the input file and -o output.gif specifies the output file.

Conclusion

Creating animated GIFs from MP4 videos using the command line can be a simple process with the right tools. Whether you choose to use ffmpeg, ImageMagick, or gifify, you now have the knowledge to create your own GIFs from videos. Happy GIF-making!