Bug 27308 – Idea: Transcode GIFs to a better format internally

• Status: NEW
• Component: Images

[Peter Kasting]

The GIF given in the URL field uses lots of CPU even on the open-source decoders.  Perhaps it's just blindly having each frame fully independent from the prior frames, which, when combined with a larger image size and a short frame time, means nearly unavoidable CPU use.

bdash had an interesting suggestion on IRC, which was to transcode the GIF internally, so that we could use something less CPU- and memory-intensive after paying the decode cost once.  I'm not sure what format would be appropriate but surely in the twenty years since GIF we've created something better.  All I could think of was APNG (which would require adding support for APNG).

This would also help bug 22280.