How do I take a scene in a movie and make it an animated gif?

[BrokenVisage]

What's involved? What program do you recommend? WHATT.

 

[Eureka]

Adobe ImageReady has an option to turn a part of a video file into animated gif.

Norm

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: cevilgenius
Adobe ImageReady has an option to turn a part of a video file into animated gif.

Norm

What formats does it read? Is it possible to just play a DVD and capture a scene like that?

 

[BrokenVisage]

bump for great justice!

 

[John P]

Jasc Animation Shop 3 (came with Paint Shop Pro 7) can take AVI's and MPEG's and turn them in to Animated Gifs.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: John P.
Jasc Animation Shop 3 (came with Paint Shop Pro 7) can take AVI's and MPEG's and turn them in to Animated Gifs.

Would I have to encode an entire DVD just to make a 5 second gif though? Is it possible to just encode a certain chapter maybe?

 

[John P]

I've only messed around with it a bit. I would suppose you would neet to edit the video with something like Pinnacle Studio to get the clip you wanted then turn just that portion into an animated gif, but it would certainly take a while to turn that big a file into an animated gif. I have seen people use animated gifs for shorter clips, like on the pitching/hitting forums I frequent. Why would you want to use an animated gif for an entire DVD chapter?

 

[garkon]

i'm guessing the OP is going for a little bit less than an entire scene. The answer is yes, you can capture as little of a dvd as you want, if you have the right program to do that. Turning it into a mpg before making it a gif would be a possibillity, but i really dont know, but i doubt a program that could make a gif would recognise the dvd format. Anyways this is coming from someone who really didn't have anything to add to a thread besides what i thought, so um.......

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: John P.
I've only messed around with it a bit. I would suppose you would neet to edit the video with something like Pinnacle Studio to get the clip you wanted then turn just that portion into an animated gif, but it would certainly take a while to turn that big a file into an animated gif. I have seen people use animated gifs for shorter clips, like on the pitching/hitting forums I frequent. Why would you want to use an animated gif for an entire DVD chapter?

I just want a scene, something like 5 seconds, I only said chapter in relation to just encoding what chapter it was in other then the entire disc.

 

[John P]

I just want a scene, something like 5 seconds, I only said chapter in relation to just encoding what chapter it was in other then the entire disc.

OK, so then you'll need something to capture the DVD to disc as an MPEG or AVI. Then use something like Pinnacle Studio to edit to your 5 second clip and save as MPEG or AVI. Then use Jasc Animation Shop to make into an animated gif. You can take a large clip into Animation shop and then trim out what you don't need but it's easier to do the video editing with software like Studio.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Well I got Pinnacle Studio and the necessary plugins needed to do encoding, but whenever I try to import something from DVd I get an "Cannot Import DVD Title - The DVD is either copy-protected, locked, or cannot be read by Studio" and it gives me this message no matter why DVD I try.. any suggestions? PM me if it's not so legal.

 

[HN]

Capture it with the free Camstudio v2.0 here - http://www.camstudio.org/ (NOT camtasia studio or camstudio 2.1)

Import it into ImageReady to make the .gif (what i do is drop the .avi that i captured into a folder and then in imageready, i go File -> Import -> from Folder (or Import Folder, i'll clear it up when i get home if it's not clear) -> and then select the folder.

depending on how long your clip is and what its dimensions are, the file will be huge so you have to tweak things like # of frames, resolution, overall length.

enjoy!

 

[MangoTBG]

Well what DVD and what scene are you trying to do, if you don't mind me asking? If it's a popular scene maybe you could ahhhh...test out, for educational purposes only, some sort of p2p program to get the clip? Then work from there? Probably a longshot...but oh well. If I were to be doing this I would probably use Auto Gordian Knot to capture to divx/xvid then go from there...

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: HN
Capture it with the free Camstudio v2.0 here - http://www.camstudio.org/ (NOT camtasia studio or camstudio 2.1)

Import it into ImageReady to make the .gif (what i do is drop the .avi that i captured into a folder and then in imageready, i go File -> Import -> from Folder (or Import Folder, i'll clear it up when i get home if it's not clear) -> and then select the folder.

depending on how long your clip is and what its dimensions are, the file will be huge so you have to tweak things like # of frames, resolution, overall length.

enjoy!

Wow, that's exactly what I'm looking for, good call! Will try it when I get home and put together a gif. Thanks all who helped!

 

[BrokenVisage]

I'm having trouble capturing video with Camstudio, it just shows it as a black screen when I look at the finished .avi, and if I move the recording pane around and such I can see other parts of my desktop though, what am I doing wrong?

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage
I'm having trouble capturing video with Camstudio, it just shows it as a black screen when I look at the finished .avi, and if I move the recording pane around and such I can see other parts of my desktop though, what am I doing wrong?

I believe Fair Use Wizard can rip a specific part of a movie. It'll save it as a divx/xvid file.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage
I'm having trouble capturing video with Camstudio, it just shows it as a black screen when I look at the finished .avi, and if I move the recording pane around and such I can see other parts of my desktop though, what am I doing wrong?

open the video in one instance of windows media player and pause that window.
open the video again in another instance of windows media player and try your capture from that window. (If WMP doesn't open the dvd, use MPC.)

to avoid the desktop back ground and window frame, select to record from a region in the camstudio settings. that way, when you press record, you first draw a region before it starts recording.

(alternatively, i hear VLC can output the clip as well but i have no experience with the player myself: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=33&threadid=1747046&enterthread=y )

 

[Jeff7]

My freeware method:
Rip the chapter of the DVD to the hard drive with DVD Decrypter, SmartRipper, or whatever program you have.

Now, my method for transcoding DVDs to XviD is partly used here:

Open the file with DGindex. Set the cut points close to the scene in the movie that you want. This part doesn't have to be perfectly accurate. Just set the points ahead and after the scene you want so you're sure to get it. Then do File -> Save Project. This'll create a small .D2V file.

Another program, VF-API.
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/vf-api.html
Yes, I know the link is broken. Remove the "-
from the "vf-api" portion. It contains a forbidden word, the once infamous f-a-p word. Pissed me off once long ago, cause I was writing a tutorial to post here on converting DVDs to XviD and getting good results. It of course just tells you "you typed a forbidden word" and then it wipes out what you'd typed. I had to type the post 2x before I realized what the "forbidden word" was. :|

Anyhow, use that program to Add the D2V file created previously, and click Convert. This creates a .AVI file that Virtualdub can read.

Now, load the AVI file into Virtualdub, set your cut points, then File -> Save as Image Sequence. Save as BMP files so you don't get quality loss at this stage.

Here's where my instructions end, because I've not needed to make any animated GIF files recently. I'd imagine that there are freeware programs out there though that would get the job done.

 

[BrokenVisage]

How did I know I would have a hard time doing this? :roll:

1. HN: I can import the avi to ImageReady but I can't see the video in it and so all the slides it generates are blank. I tryed the thing with opening two instances of the movie and recording like that but no dice, tried with Nero, VLC, WMP... still nada.

2. Jeff7: Thanks for explaining the process but sorry your original post got deleted, hahaha sorry but it was funny even though it happened to me before. I was able to generate the bmp's doing all that but no matter what settings I try Animated GIF creator won't make the gif fast enough. Is this something specific to the program you think?

Also, how would I go about ripping the audio from the scene I want to clip out as well?

Thanks guys.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

1. HN: I can import the avi to ImageReady but I can't see the video in it and so all the slides it generates are blank. I tryed the thing with opening two instances of the movie and recording like that but no dice, tried with Nero, VLC, WMP... still nada.

Also, how would I go about ripping the audio from the scene I want to clip out as well?

hmm...that's odd. the clip itself that you capture can be viewed properly (no black/blank screen), but once imported to imageready, then it's blank? i've not encountered that myself so i'm not sure of a workaround. what movie is it by the way? i might have time to work on it myself.

for capturing audio, camstudio should be able to do it also while capturing the video.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

1. HN: I can import the avi to ImageReady but I can't see the video in it and so all the slides it generates are blank. I tryed the thing with opening two instances of the movie and recording like that but no dice, tried with Nero, VLC, WMP... still nada.

Also, how would I go about ripping the audio from the scene I want to clip out as well?

hmm...that's odd. the clip itself that you capture can be viewed properly (no black/blank screen), but once imported to imageready, then it's blank? i've not encountered that myself so i'm not sure of a workaround. what movie is it by the way? i might have time to work on it myself.

for capturing audio, camstudio should be able to do it also while capturing the video.

Thanks for responding man, I just tried it on my work computer too and get the same damn thing. Just to clarify, I'm not getting the video on what CamStudio captures, so that's where the problem starts at. I even tried exporting it to flash as well and even the .swf gives me blank video, I can see my pointer moving around but no video underneath it. Is there an option I need to enable for it to recognize the live video or something? Bah, some IT tech I am.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: HN

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

1. HN: I can import the avi to ImageReady but I can't see the video in it and so all the slides it generates are blank. I tryed the thing with opening two instances of the movie and recording like that but no dice, tried with Nero, VLC, WMP... still nada.

Also, how would I go about ripping the audio from the scene I want to clip out as well?

hmm...that's odd. the clip itself that you capture can be viewed properly (no black/blank screen), but once imported to imageready, then it's blank? i've not encountered that myself so i'm not sure of a workaround. what movie is it by the way? i might have time to work on it myself.

for capturing audio, camstudio should be able to do it also while capturing the video.

Thanks for responding man, I just tried it on my work computer too and get the same damn thing. Just to clarify, I'm not getting the video on what CamStudio captures, so that's where the problem starts at. I even tried exporting it to flash as well and even the .swf gives me blank video, I can see my pointer moving around but no video underneath it. Is there an option I need to enable for it to recognize the live video or something? Bah, some IT tech I am.

hmm, recording from that second window (with the first window paused) should have worked. what's being done by doing that (playing from the second window) is that the second window has overlay/hardware acceleration disabled.

you can try again with one window, but turn off video acceleration. in WMP go to Tools - Options - Performance tab - Slide Video acceleration to None (this is for WMP 10, not sure if it's the same in previous versions but look for that particular setting). try recording again.

 

[BrokenVisage]

I managed to make THIS using the method with Virtualdub exporting an image sequence. I took out every 2nd frame, made the frame delay 0, shrunk it down to less then a meg, and it STILL plays like crap. I've seen nicer looker animated gif's from a movie play for even longer and still look 10x better then this. Is there a way to speed it up a little more maybe?

 

[BrokenVisage]

bump for great justice!

 

[Jeff7]

I've used GIF Construction Set lightly in the past. I don't know what all their demo version will do, but you can give that a shot. I know it gives decent control over the timing between frames. It also has some kind of "Supercompress" feature that supposedly reduces the filesize significantly.