OTHER VERSIONS OF THESE PROGRAMS, NEWER OR OLDER, MAY NOT WORKĪvidemux (2.5) (Supposedly any version of 2.5 works, but not 2.6+. THESE ARE THE VERSIONS OF THE PROGRAMS I USE AND KNOW THAT WORK If you want a more in depth (and much better) understanding of I and P frames I highly recommend this post. Depending on what you do with these frames though will depend on what kind of effect you get. What you’re doing when you datamosh is taking out those I frames, and messing around with the P frames. The basic flow of video like this is: I - P - P - P… etc. This is used to save space, which is the whole point of compression. An I frame is an image, while a P frame contains movement data.

Simply put, when you have a compressed video, there are generally two different frame types, I frames and P frames (There is a third, the B frame, but that isn't important for this). You are essentially breaking the video compression when you datamosh. I will try to explain it as easily and succinctly as possible.

If you've tried to look up how datamoshing works before no doubt you've come across these terms. The first thing you need to know is the basics of how video compression works in regards to I and P frames. What you’re doing doesn't actually have anything to do with gifs at all. What you’re really doing when you create a broken gif isn't really ‘breaking’ the gif. You can skip this part if you really want, but it helps to have a simple understanding of what you’re actually doing. I will try to explain this as simply as possible, and hope that this helps you learn more about how to datamosh. I don’t want other people to struggle finding out how to do it like I did, because it’s immensely fun and interesting. The point of this tutorial is because It was a pain for me to figure out a way that worked for me.

Eventually, after combining knowledge from a few random sources that never seemed to work on their own, I finally figured out how to. I way always frustrated and couldn't figure out how to do it. If you’re anything like me, you've probably looked up how to make broken gifs, but only came across things that are for the wrong platform (The one people always seemed to recommend was for Macs only). This tutorial was written for Windows Introduction

Computer datamoshes online videos