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Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF?

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On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 08:13:32 +0200, Herbert Kleebauer wrote :


>> have an animated GIF. So I searched for the best way to take screenrecs,
>> but too many programs showed up as potential Windows screen recorders.
> 
>> But I'm curious, what do you use to record the screen to animated GIF?
> 
> Why not use the Windows Snipping Tool (<WIN>-<SHIFT>-S)? And I don't
> see any advantage in converting the mp4 to animated gif format. But
> if you really want:
> 
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.gif
> 
> I suppose, most people already have ffmpeg installed (it is a
> command line tool, so it doesn't need to be "installed", but just
> copied to your disk), because it is THE all-purpose video tool.

Good question. I don't have a good initial answer for your question.

The answer I will give you, at least for up until you asked the question,
is that I tried "Win+R > snippingtool" years & years ago (when it first
came out) and I didn't think it did anything that Irfanview didn't do - so
- I forgot all about it - until you asked that question of me just now.

Perhaps a secondary answer is that I wasn't aware "Win+R > snippingtool"
could save the screen-recorded "video" to animated GIFs. 

Looking that up, I belatedly understood why you brought up the topic of an
MP4 file, where I'm well familiar with ffmpeg so I understand your point.

Digging deeper though, I found out that apparently the screen recording
feature inside Snipping Tool is exclusive to Windows 11; not Windows 10.

The video recording to MP4 feature apparently doesn't work on Windows 10.
But it's good for Windows 11 users since it's native so it's already there.

As for ffmpeg, I use it to clean up my video that I post to Amazon Vine.
 <https://amazon.com/vine/about>

These are my favorite commands given I only need to do simple editing.

Remove metadata 
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -map 0 -map_metadata -1 -c copy output.mp4

Probe metadata
 ffprobe -i input.mp4

Deshake:
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf deshake output_deshake.mp4

Remove the first two seconds of the video:
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 2 -c copy output.mp4

Chop the video keeping the first 30 seconds only:
 ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00 -i input.mp4 -to 00:00:30 output_chop.mp4

Slow a video by 2.5 and remove the audio (because it will be distorted)
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=PTS*2.5" -an output.mp4

Add an audio track which is longer than the video:
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i audio.m4a -map 0:v -map 1:a -c:v copy -c:a aac -shortest output.mp4

This adds the longer audio track and fades out two seconds before the end
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i audio.m4a -map 0:v -map 1:a -c:v copy -c:a aac -af afade=t=out:st=83.5:d=2 -shortest output.mp4

Get the accurate length, e.g., 19.02000 (for a 19-second video):
 ffprobe -i input.mp4 -show_entries format=duration -v quiet -print_format default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1

Burn subtitles
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "subtitles=input.srt:force_style='FontSize=36,PrimaryColour=&H00FFFF'" output.mp4

Rotate (flip) 180 degrees clockwise:
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "transpose=1,transpose=1" output.mp4

Rotate (flip) 90 degrees clockwise:
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "transpose=1" output.mp4

Create the thumbnail (let's say a frame at 10 seconds)
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:10 -frames:v 1 thumbnail.jpg

Embed the chosen thumbnail
 ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i thumbnail.jpg -map 0 -map 1 -c copy -disposition:v:1 attached_pic output.mp4

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Thread

What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-15 23:45 +0000
  Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-16 05:49 +0000
  Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2025-07-16 08:13 +0200
    Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? JJ <jj4public@outlook.com> - 2025-07-16 14:40 +0700
      Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-07-16 10:13 +0200
        Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-07-16 19:20 +0000
          Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-17 02:01 +0000
            Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-07-17 07:00 +0000
    Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-16 08:37 +0000
      Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-07-16 11:13 +0200
        Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2025-07-16 09:42 +0000
        Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-07-16 19:44 +0200
          Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-17 01:57 +0000
      Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2025-07-16 12:35 +0200
        Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-17 01:55 +0000
          Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-07-17 09:39 -0400
            Re: What free software do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-18 05:40 +0000
      Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-07-16 10:45 -0400
        Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-17 01:56 +0000
    Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-16 19:38 +0000
      Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2025-07-16 22:16 +0200
        Re: What freeware do you use to record the screen to animated GIF? Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-07-16 20:26 +0000

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