Best app for cutting video for import into Gif Animator?

[AnneHedonia]

I was wondering: what's the best application to use for cutting out specific sections of video clips before importing into Gif Animator? So far I haven't been able to make a video clip that will open in GA.

See, I'd like to make a moving icon out of a short (2 seconds) clip of a TV show. I have the whole episode saved from TiVo, but obviously that's too big to open in GA. I downloaded a something called Video ReDo off tucows.com, cut out the few seconds I wanted and saved it as an .mpg file, but when I tried to open in it GA it told me the file was incompatible. I then downloaded another program that just converted file formats and saved the short clip as several different things -- .avi, different kinds of mpgs, etc. -- but really didn't know what I was doing and had no luck there. I always got a message that the format was incompatible, or if I didn't GA just opened it as a black, one-frame file.

Suggestions please? I'm quite new at GA and am looking forward to the possibilities of using video.

Anne

[heinz-oz]

Why do you want to animate something that is already animated???

Gif animator uses a sequence of still images (gif format) to animate these.

[Ron P.]

First I agree with Heinz, why animate an animation?

In order to convert a video to a GIF animation you need to understand that the video has Frames which could be interpreted as Still Images. A video would have X-number of Frames for every second. The common Frames per Second or fps are 29.97fps (NTSC) and 25fps (PAL).

So to do what you are wanting to do you need to break the video down to the FRAME level, and just save a certain number of Frames as still images. Then insert those images into GA.

In applications like VideoStudio you have the option of Saving as Still Image. Where VS takes a snapshot of the Current Frame, and saves it as a JPEG or BITMAP image. Taking several "snapshots" where there has been movement or a change, would then provide something that could be used to create an animated GIF.

Ron P.

[VikingAnimations]

That may be a question for a video forum...

Did you try .mov or .qt format? If you can find a program that saves in the QuickTime file format, you may have better luck. Did you try mpeg1?

I can't say that I've had troubles with videos.

[AnneHedonia]

vidoman: Yes, what I am trying to do is convert a bit of an .mpg into a .gif animation -- I want to make an icon for LiveJournal, and .gif is the only animated file format it supports.

I realize that importing a video means importing a number of individual frames, but your answer confused me some: why have an "add video" feature in GA if the "real" way to make things happen is to go and make each frame individually using a "save image" function in some other program? If I went that way I could make my animation in ImageReady, and I was recommended GA because it supposedly was better for converting short video clips. I didn't want to have to pick out the frames myself because I don't always pick the right frames or enough frames, and the results come out really choppy. I kind of wanted something more automated to do it for me.

However, I clicked on the link in VikingAnimations' sig and looked at his GA tutorial, and he says: "Clicking the Duration button will let you select the start and end frames you desire." That sounds like it would do exactly what I'd like. If I did that with my whole original video, instead of trying to cut out a clip first, would that work okay (as long as I didn't try to add too many frames)? Or would attempting even to work with a file of that size overwhelm the program?

Thanks for taking the time to address my newbie concerns,
Anne

[VikingAnimations]

The smaller the file a program has to open initially, the quicker things will happen. No need to save a huge video file with Video ReDo if you just want to nab a couple seconds. Give yourself a second or two leeway on the start and end, and then you can do what my tutorial mentions.

The video support in GA seems a bit dated. It doesn't agree with certain codecs, and some formats may not be properly supported.

As mentioned earlier, try saving in MPEG1 format, not mpeg2. Let us know if that helps.

[AnneHedonia]

VikingAnimations: Thanks for the feedback, and no, I don't plan to save a big video file for a couple of seconds -- I was hoping to save a small video file cut from a big video file, and then open it in GA and grab a couple of seconds.

Which leads me back around to my original question: can you suggest an app for me to do that, for me to use to save the file in different formats? Would one of the other Ulead programs work well? Would something like Video Toolbox be enough?

Thanks again,
Anne

[sjj1805]

Try downloading the 30 day trial version of VideoStudio and using that.
You can cut a small pice of video out of the larger one then save in the formats suggested by VikingAnimations
http://www.ulead.co.uk/vs/trial.htm

[AnneHedonia]

sjj1805: Brilliant. Thanks so much for the recommendation, and thanks to everyone for their input!

[CASTOR111]

I was wondering: what's the best application to use for cutting out specific sections of video clips before importing into Gif Animator? So far I haven't been able to make a video clip that will open in GA.

See, I'd like to make a moving icon out of a short (2 seconds) clip of a TV show. I have the whole episode saved from TiVo, but obviously that's too big to open in GA. I downloaded a something called Video ReDo off tucows.com, cut out the few seconds I wanted and saved it as an .mpg file, but when I tried to open in it GA it told me the file was incompatible. I then downloaded another program that just converted file formats and saved the short clip as several different things -- .avi, different kinds of mpgs, etc. -- but really didn't know what I was doing and had no luck there. I always got a message that the format was incompatible, or if I didn't GA just opened it as a black, one-frame file.

Suggestions please? I'm quite new at GA and am looking forward to the possibilities of using video.

Anne

for cutting out some sections from video you have to use some tools, video editing software,such as PresentaVid.com. it has a free trial, so you can try it first and see for yourself.