[eviks]

How does GIF require support for looping as opposed to it being just a player implementation no different from any other format?

[acchow]

GIF format includes a flag inside it to indicate how many times (or forever) to loop the video.

HEVC does not have such a flag. Quite unfortunate

[eviks]

Interesting, it seems like this isn't part of the spec per wiki:

> Most browsers now recognize and support NAB, though it is not strictly part of the GIF89a specification.

So I guess the players for the new video codecs could do something similar and agree on some metadata to be used for the same purpose?

[codetrotter]

> Most browsers now recognize and support NAB

The “NAB” was introduced in Netscape Navigator 2.0, 50 million years ago.

The phrasing with “most browsers” and “now” is a bit weird, on part of whoever wrote that part of the Wikipedia article.

Every major browser that I know of has supported animated gifs since forever.

Any browser that doesn’t is probably either a non-graphical browser in the first place, or one that has like five people using it.

[eviks]

You're doing a similar phrasing weirdnesd as the wiki

> Every major browser

There are only 2 major ones

And this brings us back to the main point - this is no "format" issue, Chrome could just as well support some metadata field as "loop for n" for the newer video files, and the situation would be the same as with NAB when Safari adds it.

[teruakohatu]

There are two major browser engine lineages but at least four of 'major' browsers (>5% market share) and a number of minor browsers.

[troupo]

There are three major browser engines. Chrome derivatives cannot be counted as a separate browser (yet, or ever? remains to be seen)

[eviks]

5% is minor, not major.