VideoGIF Review & Rating

Review:VideoGIF

Many times we see GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) files, those little animated things on forums and sites. GIF files are a good way to show a small animation. It's different from a video file. You do not need a dedicated player to watch a GIF. Web browsers display them by default. And they are cool!

VideoGIF is an app by Pearl Mountain Soft which creates GIF files for you. Its available for Apple Macintosh computers right now.

Getting and Installing the app:

A trial version of VideoGIF is availabe on the Mac store for download. The full version is available as a part of a limited offer for $4.99. Talking about the download, its easy as the app is small in size, only 6.7 MB. Installation is easy, one-click.

Interface:

The Start Screen

The interface of VideoGIF is clean and easy to use. On starting the app, you get a start screen. On the start screen, there are three ways in which you can select the source for your GIF file. We liked the option of the webcam, you can make GIF of your selfies! There are options to add stickers, custom text, and adding layers. Layers provide a good way to keep things separate from each other. You can add different layers in a single GIF file.

Adding a Video:

We tested VideoGIF by adding a short video from our disk. On adding the video, the app notifies you of the size, and tells you to reduce it. Changing the size of the GIF was easy, just click the button and you can change the size, just put the width, and the height will come automatically. By default a portion of the video is selected for the GIF. You can just set the pointer to the position from where you want to start the GIF and set the start marker there, same for the end position marker. VideoGIF provides many things to spice up the GIF like the stickers, layers etc. A pretty nice list of stickers is provided with the app. You can change the timing duration for the stickers as well. Also you can set the opacity, i.e. how much % the sticker will be visible over the GIF. Some Instagram-ish effects are also given which are applied to the entire video. Video can be cropped directly with the crop tool. Overall we liked the features provided by VideoGIF, and the convenience of using it.

Notification to reduce size.

Resizing the video is easy.

Good amount of stickers to choose from.

Settings available for stickers.

Saving the GIF:

The app provides typical settings to make the GIF file. The most important thing for users would be the frame count. Videos are generally 25 frames/second. That means in one second, 25 frames (still images) are displayed on the screen, which creates a sense of motion. In the GIF, you can set the frame number. Setting it to 25 will make a very large GIF file generally in the range of >20 MB. But you get the complete high speed motion at higher frame rates. Also setting high frame number takes time to make the GIF. We would recommend setting it to about 10 or 15, that would suffice in most cases. Also you can make the GIF in reverse sequence.

Conclusion:
VideoGIF is an excellent app, it does its work very good, of making GIF's. We would recommend this app to anyone who wants to make GIF's and share it with their friends. Though we would have liked if the app was available at the price of $4.99, which is its discounted price. 

Ratings:
Interface:5/5
Ease of use:4.5/5
Speed:3.5/5
Price:4/5
Overall:4.5/5 

Download (or buy): VideoGIF