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New picture format is a headache

iFanaddic

iFanaddic

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 24, 2008
819
242
Montréal, Canada
the new .heic format isn’t recognized anywhere.

Imgur wont process it
Dropbox wont process it
Friends can’t open my picture attachments

What is wrong? How can I convert them back to .jpg?

AA6F3C00-CE19-4324-983B-175AC3DFF983.png 98DE3111-2F2D-4B80-87DC-8F6AC6D6CBAF.png A83C4E3D-0D6C-4D9B-A4B7-A3D3C78F88C8.png
 
Yeah got the same problem while downloading photos to my pc, Win10 can’t recognise them. We just need to wait for rest to be able recognise those formats
 
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I'm definitely planning on disabling the new formats until compatibility is more universal. It seems like NOTHING can open them right now except beta Apple software. That doesn't bode well for the time just after release.
 
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Unless Apple updates older OS X releases to read .heic I'll have to sit this format out. Not shelling out $2000+ to import photos.
 
UL2RA said:
It's .HEIF guys ... not .HEIC
Click to expand...

That may be so, but when I was messing with them when viewed on a computer, especially on my Mac, pictures have the HEIC extension.

There’s a setting in the format section of the camera settings menu. Just change it from high efficiency to most compatible. This will continue taking pics in normal jpeg format. I did this when I first loaded the betas.

dcbf6513c71073093f0676ff8da46132.jpg
 
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kingston73 said:
Is that just an iPhone setting? I’m not seeing that in my air2.
Click to expand...
The new formats are only available on the 7 and 7plus I believe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I know it was restricted to newer devices. Just not positive how new.
 
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Chazzle said:
The new formats are only available on the 7 and 7plus I believe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I know it was restricted to newer devices. Just not positive how new.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they need to be able to encode the new formats in hardware, otherwise you'd have to use a software solution, which would waste too much battery power.
 
UL2RA said:
It's .HEIF guys ... not .HEIC
Click to expand...
The photo is actually photo.heic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format

And to be honest it's both. HEIF and HEIC, as in Container.

Nokia specialists also have files .heic
https://github.com/nokiatech/heif

The whole concept is HEIF but files are .heic:
"All the example media files (*.heic, *.png, *.jpg, *.gif)"

More info here: https://nokiatech.github.io/heif/index.html


Personally, I like new formats. They are very future-proof. At some point we need to make a switch, I prefer to do it now, to save even more space and get better quality and smarter files (as HEIC can embed more info).
 
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IGI2 said:
The photo is actually photo.heic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format

And to be honest it's both. HEIF and HEIC, as in Container.

Nokia specialists also have files .heic
https://github.com/nokiatech/heif

The whole concept is HEIF but files are .heic:
"All the example media files (*.heic, *.png, *.jpg, *.gif)"

More info here: https://nokiatech.github.io/heif/index.html


Personally, I like new formats. They are very future-proof. At some point we need to make a switch, I prefer to do it now, to save even more space and get better quality and smarter files (as HEIC can embed more info).
Click to expand...
That's not confusing at all. :p
 
guibo said:
does ios11 also convert your old photos to the new format, or only newly captured ones?
Click to expand...

As I understand it, just newly captured photos. You wouldn't want it to automatically convert from one lossy format to another. Plus, some people have large libraries. I have over 27,000 myself. I wouldn't want my phone to automatically convert those. It would be going forever. If any conversion is to happen, I'd want to kick that off manually and use my Mac for that instead of my phone or tablet.
 
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MEJHarrison said:
As I understand it, just newly captured photos. You wouldn't want it to automatically convert from one lossy format to another. Plus, some people have large libraries. I have over 27,000 myself. I wouldn't want my phone to automatically convert those. It would be going forever. If any conversion is to happen, I'd want to kick that off manually and use my Mac for that instead of my phone or tablet.
Click to expand...

i really hope apple offers an easy way to convert your library to the new format. it would save a lot of storage space, even if the conversion from lossy to lossy will impact quality slightly.
 
MEJHarrison said:
As I understand it, just newly captured photos. You wouldn't want it to automatically convert from one lossy format to another. Plus, some people have large libraries. I have over 27,000 myself. I wouldn't want my phone to automatically convert those. It would be going forever. If any conversion is to happen, I'd want to kick that off manually and use my Mac for that instead of my phone or tablet.
Click to expand...

This has me thinking new directly related questions:

Since for example you have 27,000 photos on your iPhone, no I wouldn't expect changing the format of existing photos to occur on the phone. This will not matter with non iCloud library enabled or an iCloud account signed into on the phone.

That said when you send a photo from your iPhone via email or to 3rd party cloud storage, is the iPhone sending the photo or is iCloud sending it?! If it's the latter, is the format changed via iClouds servers (done automatically in real time)? If sent from the phone does iCloud change it regardless- actually sending from there vs he phone itself? Think of the speed of which using iCloud servers to send your photos you vitally see on your phone? When sending photos via email on low mobile/WiFi signals there is a long delay before confirmation of sending. Use of iCloud it'll send from there in a blink of an eye.

Would be interesting if his is done, again if iCloud Library is enabled.
 
itsmilo said:
Can this be disabled as a default setting? It will probably tale another 10 years for local photo print machines to support this
Click to expand...
I don't see the harm.

By taking photos and videos in HEIC and HEVC formats, you will save about 50% of the storage space as well as few added benefits like ability to pick a full quality keyframe on live photo and one photo storing HDR, Depth Effect, and original in the single file.

And by enabling the compatibility setting that defaults to true, you can export the photo in compatible format at will.
 
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