Video editing tools come and go, but one stalwart in a sea of applications in VirtualDub. The free AVI editor continues to be a handy utility, even with the rise of better container formats such as MP4 and MKV (which VirtualDub doesn’t support). If you have an AVI you want to quickly convert to a GIF for use online, VirtualDub can help.
It honestly couldn’t be easier. Just open the AVI file you want to convert, then go to File -> Export -> Animated GIF. You’ll then be able to choose the export filename and the loop type of the GIF.
I wasn’t expecting much in terms of quality — GIF only supports 256 colours, so going down from 16.7 million you should expect a loss in fidelity — but the resulting file was quite good. Of course it depends on how complex the colours are in the source video, but for simpler clips, it’ll do just nicely.
For capturing GIFs on the fly, you should look into tools such as ScreenToGif and GifCam, though they’re not the best options if you want to have a high-quality original.
VirtualDub [Official site]
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