Mega gif indeed. Two relevant excerpts found in the about page (it's a gif but not a gif):
Why 796?
The name of the project has a small code: 7, 9 and 6 are the ordinal numbers of the letters in the English alphabet for the word GIF. This project is essentially one big gif, a mega gif, so all the action takes place on the 796th (GIF) floor of the space station :)
How does animation rendering work?
In order to maintain pixel clarity and still have good compression, it was necessary to create own video format. The entire animation is divided into sections, and each section is packed into this special format. The browser then loads the desired section and renders it in a separate thread into the common canvas.
Comments
Mega gif indeed. Two relevant excerpts found in the about page (it's a gif but not a gif):
In order to maintain pixel clarity and still have good compression, it was necessary to create own video format. The entire animation is divided into sections, and each section is packed into this special format. The browser then loads the desired section and renders it in a separate thread into the common canvas.