How to Convert a YouTube Video
It is very easy to convert a YouTube video to an animated GIF in a nearly automated way. This tutorial should work roughly the same way on any operating system as long as you have the required tools:
1. Make sure you have access to all the required tools. As far as command line tools go, you will need wget, grep, sed, and xargs. These come with almost all Linux installations, or on Windows, you can use Cygwin. In addition, you need to have MPlayer installed.
2.Find the YouTube video you would like to convert. Make sure it is short, as a 5 minute video will become an animated GIF that is about 36 MB. The URL for the video should look like the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Sb0hGUNIQ
Note the part after the ?v=, e.g. 34Sb0hGUNIQ. Copy this code to your clipboard or write it down.
3. Do the conversion by typing:
./mplayer -vo gif89a ducktales.flv
It takes about as long as the video normally runs in order to finish converting. When it is done, there will be a new file in the same directory called output.gif. Try dragging it into a browser to see it run.
You have just successfully convert YouTube video to an animated GIF! Click here to see the final output. Note that if it seems slow, it is most likely because the video (7.5 MB) is still loading.
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