Generating GIFs from video files has been one of the rare skills that I have learned, forgotten, then re-learned several times over the past decade or so. With this article I hope to end this vicious cycle by documenting the process for myself and others to learn. Here it goes.

Requirements

• ffmpeg
• ImageMagick
• A video file of your choice

Step 1: Retrieve FPS of video file

$ ffprobe FiveEasyPieces.mp4
(...)
Duration: 01:38:24.43, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2334 kb/s
Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1920x1040 [SAR 1:1 DAR 24:13], 1932 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 24k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
(...)

FPS is shown here to be 23.9

Step 2: Generate sequence of stills with ffmpeg

$ ffmpeg -ss 01:26:48 -i FiveEasyPieces.mp4 -t 10 -s 480x260 -f image2 %03d.png

01:26:48 is an example timestamp of where I want the capture to begin.

-t 10 denotes the number of seconds I want to capture for, in this case 10 seconds.

-s 480x260 is the aspect ratio. I made sure to match the ratio specified in the previous ffprobe output.

-f image2 tells ffmpage the type of output we want

%03d.png the '%03' specifies how many digits to use to name the file. If the frames get into the thousands it would be necessary to change to '%04'.

Step 3: Combine sequence of stills into an Animated GIF with ImageMagick

$ convert -delay 1x24 *.png -coalesce -layers OptimizeTransparency animation.gif

-delay 1x24 refers to the framerate we found earlier; 1 second for every 24 frames.

Step4: Optimizations

Several methods can be employed for reducing the size of your GIF.

$ convert -fuzz 2% -delay 1x24 *.png -coalesce -layers OptimizeTransparency animation.gif

Fuzz percentage can be negotiated.

$ convert +dither -delay 1x24 *.png -coalesce -layers OptimizeTransparency animation.gif

Disable dithering with +dither.

$ convert -colors 16 -delay 1x24 *.png -coalesce -layers OptimizeTransparency animation.gif

Specify number of colors to lessen file size.

You can also do things like reducing the framerate or size of the stills in Step 1 to help bring down file size.

Good luck!