According to https://developers.google.com/speed/webp :
“WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster.”
I wanted to convert some Animated GIFS to WEBP format to set them as animated wallpapers in my Opera browser. I wrote before about creating animated wallpapers for Opera. Read here:
davescomputertips.com/using-creating-animated-backgrounds-in-opera
I also wrote about converting Animated GIFS to video here: davescomputertips.com/convert-animated-gif-to-video
So now I'm going to show you how to convert Animated GIFS to WEBP format and set them as background wallpaper in Opera. There are numerous online services that probably can do the job but I prefer to have a program on my computer to do the job.
And I found one called WebPconv:
Download WebPconv from Archive.org web.archive.org/web/20210512090251/http://romeolight.com/products/webpconv
Note this program is longer being supported and the romeolight.com website is history.
Its pretty easy to use. Just open up the program, drag-and-drop a file or click on the + sign at the very top left-hand corner.
Then click on the Encode/Decode button right next to the + sign button. So I dropped a Animated GIF, hit the Encode button and in the end a webp file. In the settings I left checked the option to Save to the desktop as webp folder. This creates a folder on the desktop for every file you convert, if doing them individually, uncheck if you don't want this.
Click on the hamburger menu or the three stacked lines in the top left-hand corner to access the settings. I just left everything as is.
The Decode, I assume is supposed to work in the opposite direction. Seems to work for individual pictures but not for animated gifs.
Then I opened the file in Opera, it started playing, I just right-clicked on it and chose the option Use image as wallpaper. A lot simpler than my first solution.
Some Other Notes About WEBP.
I tried to open this file in different programs just to see which ones could handle it.
It is technically a image file so no surprises the media players can't open it.
Xnview can't open it but IrfanView64 can. Windows Photo Viewer can open it but displays it like a series of photos, one frame at a time, rather than an animated GIF. It opens in GIMP as a series of images as well.
All the browsers seem to handle it with no problems.