Why don't my gifv links work properly?

KFCeytron·Dec 8, 2018·1 votes·3,457 views

The short videos I upload to Imgur for conversion into the gifv format don't autoplay properly here - they can't even be played in the modal popup. They only play when visiting the actual Imgur page. And when you do click through to that page, it goes to the imgur.com/image_id page that wraps the video, not the i.imgur.com/image_id.gifv direct link that I posted. I get the same result whether I'm posting them in a new thread or as a reply to an existing thread. Here's an example:

https://i.imgur.com/uD7K2Hk.gifv

My videos are encoded with H264 in an mp4 container. What do I have to do differently, whether in my Boards post, the video creation process, or the Imgur upload process, to ensure that these work properly?

EDIT: Trying the closing img tag (didn't think it was necessary for gifv):

https://i.imgur.com/uD7K2Hk.gifv[/img]

EDIT: If you turn your video into a gif so Imgur can turn it back into a video, it'll autoplay, but if it's the first post of a thread, you'll still have that big Imgur wrapper in the preview, apparently. I've even seen jpgs from Imgur fail on Boards nowadays, though, so I guess that's a thing.

12 Comments

ModmichaelchanDec 8, 20181 votes

I'm at a loss. I'd write it off simply as a limitation of either imgur or the embedding package that the Boards uses.

Sorry I don't have better news.

KFCeytronDec 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

https://i.imgur.com/uD7K2Hk.gifv[/img]

That doesn't seem to work, either in the OP or (as you've demonstrated) in a reply. The link without the closing img tag doesn't work in a reply, either:

https://i.imgur.com/uD7K2Hk.gifv

KFCeytronDec 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

https://imgur.com/uD7K2Hk

https://i.imgur.com/uD7K2Hk.gifv

testing

I mean, I've seen other gifv links work fine. Just not sure what I have to do - anywhere in the process - for mine to do the same.

KFCeytronDec 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I'm at a loss. I'd write it off simply as a limitation of either imgur or the embedding package that the Boards uses.

Sorry I don't have better news.

Could it be related to the fact that Imgur isn't creating a standard animated gif out of these (the direct link to the gif is just the first frame) for some reason? Maybe if I export them into big, bloated gifs, and then upload that to Imgur, it'll process them differently and the gifv will work?

ModiDec 9, 20181 votes

From Imgur

#What is GIFV? GIFVs have the high quality of a video mixed with the simple functionality of a GIF. This means they

load quickly

loop forever

and have no sound--just like a GIF!

All GIFs over 2MB will be converted to GIFV on upload. You can upload GIFs up to 200MB.

The converted videos are significantly smaller than their equivalent GIFs, which allows them to load at lightning-fast speeds with better quality. Like all GIFs, there is no sound. By lowering bandwidth consumption, the change also optimizes Imgur for users on mobile. Rejoice!

The biggest issues I see here are:

Large GIFs (larger than 2MB) are automatically converted to a GIFV
Technically speaking, GIFV is a video format (requiring a <video> tag)
The boards does not seem to support embedding videos in that manner
Imgur does not seem to support automatic generation of GIFs from uploaded MP4 videos (which yours appears to be).

KFCeytronDec 9, 20181 votes

{quoted}

From Imgur

The biggest issues I see here are:

Large GIFs (larger than 2MB) are automatically converted to a GIFV

Technically speaking, GIFV is a video format (requiring a <video> tag)

The boards does not seem to support embedding videos in that manner

Imgur does not seem to support automatic generation of GIFs from uploaded MP4 videos (which yours appears to be).

So, I might indeed have to export to gif, reupload, and use the gifv that Imgur generates from that?

ModiDec 9, 20181 votes