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Keshav Mohta

Convert video to gif in ubuntu

/ 1 min read

gif, ubuntu, ffmpeg, video

Pre-requisite

  1. install ffmpeg in Ubuntu
Terminal window
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

and

Terminal window
sudo apt install ffmpeg -y

check version using

Terminal window
ffmpeg -v

this will output like below

ffmpeg version 6.1.1-3ubuntu5 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-23ubuntu3)

How to use

  1. Create a palette image from the video
Terminal window
ffmpeg -y -i input.mp4 -vf palettegen palette.png

This will generate a image file near to video file.

  1. Now use this image while generating gif
Terminal window
ffmpeg -y -ss 5.0 -t 40 -i input.mp4 -i palette.png -aspect 16:9 -filter_complex paletteuse -r 10 output.gif

here are what these options meanings are; you can either remove or change the value of options

  • -y => overwrite output file without asking
  • -ss => skip first 5 seconds
  • -t => duration for 40 seconds
  • -i => input ( write twice ; one for video and one for image palette )
  • -r => set frame rate
  1. another way using -filter_complex option ( which is little bit tricky)
Terminal window
ffmpeg -ss 5.0 -t 40 -i hc.mp4 -i palette.png -filter_complex "[0:v] fps=10,scale=320:-1 [new];[new][1:v] paletteuse" output.gif

here in scale option; we can change it to 1280 if require large gif

Bonus Tip

you can generate gif without image palette generation suing below command ( change the option as per your need)

Terminal window
ffmpeg -ss 1 -to 6 -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "fps=10,scale=1280:-1[s]; [s]split[a][b]; [a]palettegen[palette]; [b][palette]paletteuse" output.gif