CR2 to WebM Converter

CR2 to WebM: What Actually Comes Out

A .cr2 is a Canon raw still — ExifTool's format list describes it plainly as "Canon RAW 2 (TIFF-based)" — while WebM is a video container the WebM Project built on Matroska and published under a BSD-style licence in 2010. Going from one to the other is not a re-wrap. The raw is developed into an ordinary RGB frame, that single frame is held on screen for a duration you choose, and the result is encoded as a short, silent WebM clip. Nothing in the output moves, because there was never any motion in the source.

What Lands in the WebM File

Choosing the Codec Inside the WebM

How to Convert CR2 to WebM

1. Upload Your CR2 File: Drag the .cr2 onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Queue several and Merge strategy decides between one combined clip ("Merge images") and a separate file per photograph ("Video per image").
2. Set the Image Duration: Image Duration controls how long the still is held, from 1/60 of a second — a single freeze frame at 60 fps — up to 10 seconds per frame. It starts at 5 seconds, which is also the clip's total length from one photo.
3. Choose Codec, Quality and Frame Size: Video Codec offers VP9 (preselected), VP8 and AV1. File Compression opens on the "Very High (Recommended)" Quality Preset, with Constant Quality (a CRF slider) and Constraint Quality (a max-bitrate cap) as alternatives. Video resolution starts on "Keep original"; Fixed Resolutions or Width x Height give an exact frame, and Background Color fills any bars that creates.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .webm. The file is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers and deleted automatically a few hours later — no sign-up, no watermark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the WebM completely silent?

Because there is nothing to encode. A still photograph has no audio, so the converter writes no audio stream at all rather than padding the file with a blank one — that is why the Audio Codec control does not appear for this conversion. A video container with only a video track in it is entirely normal and every player handles it. If you need music or narration over the still, add it in an editor after downloading.

Why does the clip run at one frame per second?

Because a photograph has no motion to sample. The image is looped, held for the duration you chose, and stopped there, so a five-second clip is five identical frames rather than 150. Encoding repeated frames costs almost nothing, and any editor will re-time the clip to 24, 25 or 30 fps if something downstream expects a conventional rate.

Is VP9 the right codec, or should I switch to VP8 or AV1?

VP9 is preselected because it is the sensible middle ground: better compression than VP8, far faster to encode than AV1, and decoded by current browsers without fuss. Switch to VP8 only if something old has to read the file — it is the codec WebM launched with. Switch to AV1 if size is the priority and you do not mind waiting; note that caniuse puts AV1 at 94.28% of tracked browsers, with Safari offering only partial support from 17.0 onward.

What resolution will the video be?

The photograph's own dimensions unless you change them, with one caveat: the frame is prepared at no more than 4096 pixels on its long edge before it reaches the encoder, so a high-resolution modern raw is scaled down to fit. For anything web-facing you want far less than that anyway — pick a Fixed Resolution such as 1920 x 1080, or set Width x Height in pixels.

Why does my photo have coloured bars around it?

Because the frame you asked for is a different shape from the photograph. Rather than stretching or cropping the image, the converter centres it and pads the leftover space with the Background Color, which is white by default. Either choose a frame size with the same orientation as the photo, or change the padding colour to black or something that suits the project.

Does the WebM keep the CR2's raw editing latitude?

No. A CR2 holds unprocessed sensor data, which is why exposure, white balance and highlight recovery are still adjustable long after the shot. Making a video frame means demosaicing that data into ordinary 8-bit RGB and baking the current interpretation in permanently. Do your raw edits first, keep the .cr2 as the master, and treat the WebM purely as a delivery file.

Can I combine several CR2 photos into one WebM?

Yes. Add them all before converting and leave Merge strategy on "Merge images" — each rendered photo is held for the duration you set and they play back to back in upload order. There are no transitions between them; each is a hard cut to the next still. Choose "Video per image" instead and you get one .webm per photograph, all sharing the same settings.

Should I be converting to WebM at all, or do I want a picture?

If the goal is to view, share, print or archive the shot, a video container is the wrong wrapper — use CR2 to JPG for something that opens everywhere, or CR2 to WebP for a much smaller web image. WebM makes sense when you genuinely need a video file: a slate or title card on a timeline, or a still that has to sit alongside other WebM assets. If your camera is a newer mirrorless body writing .cr3 files, use CR3 to WebM instead.