Cinemagraphs in TheTVDB

What is a cinemagraph?

Cinemagraphs are .mp4 files in which a minor and repeated movement occurs, forming an awesome looking video clip.

A few more examples of great cinemagraphs are linked below:

• Game of Thrones cinemagraph
• Back to the Future cinemagraph
• The Simpsons cinemagraph

Cinemagraphs differ from GIFs in that they still mainly appear as an image, with just a subtle added motion effect.

Cinemagraphs + TheTVDB

TheTVDB recently began allowing cinemagraphs, with the goal to enhance the user experience on third-party software and apps that utilize our metadata.

How can third-party software implement cinemagraphs?

There are many ways in which a media player or tracking app can implement cinemagraphs. One way is to place a cinemagraph in an area where a banner would normally be.

Here’s an example of a cinemagraph being used on the Lost series page in the TV Time app:

Note: this feature is not available on the TV Time app.

TheTVDB’s cinemagraphs will have the majority of their significant motion in the top 85% of the frame. This allows text to be placed over the bottom 15%.

Our additional cinemagraph guidelines, listed below, aim to ensure that the art is most suitable for use in third-party systems.

TheTVDB’s cinemagraph guidelines

• The significant motion of the cinemagraph should not take place in the lower 15% of the frame. This allows text to be placed over the bottom 15%.
• Cinemagraphs must loop cleanly, and contain no noticeable artifacting.
• Cinemagraphs should not include any text, logos, writing, borders or black bars (even if the original content has black bars on the top and bottom). These should be cropped out and the resulting image cropped accordingly to fit our specific dimensions.
• Each cinemagraph should be unique.
• Make sure you are uploading the file to the correct show/movie. Some titles do have duplicate or similar names and mistakes do happen, so double-check before you upload.

TheTVDB’s cinemagraph upload requirements

• Dimensions: 1280x720 pixels
• Max upload size: 10mb
• Format: .mp4
• Available on: series + movies

So, how can I create a cinemagraph?

Of course, there are many tutorial videos out there for how to create a cinemagraph. We’ve rounded up a few tutorials we like below:

• After Effects

• Photoshop:

• Adobe Premiere Pro:

• FCXP:

Not seeing a tutorial for your software? Leave a comment and we’ll add to the post.