The Video to GIF Converter app is a modern and user-friendly tool designed to convert video clips into animated GIFs with ease. It combines the power of video processing with intuitive controls for users to trim and adjust the video before converting. With a focus on accessibility, it allows the user to select a video file, set the start and end times for the GIF creation, choose a target file size (ranging from 1MB to 10MB), and then watch the conversion process unfold with real-time progress updates.

The app uses a clean, minimalistic interface where users can control each step of the process using sliders for precise video trimming and a progress bar to show how far along the GIF conversion is. It also supports GIF compression, enabling the final output to fit within a user-defined size, making it a versatile tool for various applications such as social media sharing or email attachments. The simplicity of the design ensures even novice users can easily navigate through the steps and generate high-quality GIFs in a few clicks.

Technical Description:

The Video to GIF Converter is built using CustomTkinter for the graphical user interface (GUI) and ImageIO and Pillow (PIL) for handling video and image processing. The core functionality is organized into the following components:

1. User Interface (UI):

   • Select Video Button: Allows users to select a video file from their system (supports .mp4, .avi, .mov formats).
   • Start/End Time Sliders: Two sliders that let the user select the start and end times of the video segment to be converted to a GIF. This provides precise control over the portion of the video used in the GIF.
   • Output Path Selection: Lets the user choose where the output GIF will be saved.
   • Size Slider: A slider that allows users to set a target file size for the final GIF, ranging from 1MB to 10MB.
   • Progress Bar: Visually displays the real-time progress of the GIF conversion, showing the percentage of frames processed.

2. Video Processing:

   • ImageIO is used to read the video file and extract frames at a specified FPS (frames per second).
   • PIL (Pillow) is employed to convert each frame into a format suitable for GIF creation (RGB format). The frames are then collected into a list and saved as a GIF using Image.save() with the save_all=True option to create an animated GIF.

3. Compression:

   • After the GIF is generated, the GIF compression function reduces its size to meet the user’s specified size requirement. This is achieved by resizing the GIF’s dimensions by 10% repeatedly until the file size is under the desired target (using Image.resize() from PIL).

4. Real-time Feedback:

   • The progress bar is updated in real time during the conversion process. Each frame processed updates the progress, and the UI is refreshed using update_idletasks() to ensure smooth user experience.
   • The final completion of the GIF is marked with a 100% progress bar and a success message indicating the path where the GIF was saved.

5. Error Handling:

   • The app gracefully handles errors, such as when a user selects an unsupported video format, if a video cannot be loaded, or if there is an issue with the compression process, providing helpful error messages through message boxes.

Technologies Used:

• CustomTkinter: For building the sleek and modern GUI.
• ImageIO: For reading and processing video frames.
• Pillow (PIL): For manipulating frames and converting them into GIF format.
• OS: For file and directory handling, including the determination of file sizes.