Software
GIF Converter
Precision video compression.
Sharing short clips over iMessage, Slack, or email means hitting file size walls constantly. Video embeds require hosting; GIFs just work everywhere. But raw GIF conversion produces bloated files — a 4-second 1080p clip easily balloons to 30MB.
This tool guarantees the output stays under a target size by iteratively optimizing resolution, frame rate, and color palette. A Redis cache fingerprints each video by its properties and stores successful settings, so similar conversions skip the optimization loop entirely — cutting processing time by 60–80% on repeat patterns.
Sources: Tenor/Google 2024 transparency report, Cloudinary State of Visual Media 2023, gif.mendelow.studio production metrics.
Upload & Analyze
Drag a video file or click to browse. The backend extracts metadata — resolution, duration, frame rate, codec — and generates a preview frame for the crop tool before any conversion begins.
Auto-cycling through upload states.
Precision Controls
Three parameters drive the optimization: target file size sets the hard ceiling, quality balance trades resolution against frame rate, and time range selects which segment to convert (capped at 10 seconds).
Drag sliders to adjust conversion parameters.
Visual Cropping
Toggle square crop mode and drag the overlay to position it. Crop coordinates are translated back to original video pixels and passed to FFmpeg’s crop filter before GIF encoding.
Toggle crop and drag the square to reposition.
Conversion Pipeline
The backend runs FFmpeg with iteratively tuned parameters until the output fits under the target size. On completion, technical details — final resolution, FPS, color count, and actual size — are returned alongside the downloadable GIF.
Auto-cycling through the conversion pipeline.
Built With
A Flask API handles uploads and orchestrates FFmpeg. Upstash Redis provides the optimization cache via REST. Deployed on Fly.io with 2GB memory for video processing and 180-second request timeouts.
Source: gif.mendelow.studio