When Will MRs recognize HEIC Images?

[Huntn]

Apparently Apple recently switched the default iOS image setting to a recent format HEIC (HEIF?) both are mentioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format

I was surprised this morning when I airdropped some photos from my iPhone to my Mac, but when I tried to upload one to MRs it was greyed out. A closer inspection revealed a new format I was unfamiliar with HEIC. This new format is designed to save disk space. Fortunately there is a way in your iOS device to change it back to JPEGs Settings>Camera>Formats> then choose High Efficiency. If you want HEIC or Most Compatible if you want JPEGs.

Apple Cutting Edge as usual:
iOS 11's new image format might pose problems for PC users
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16332192/apple-ios-11-heic-iphone-image-format

 

[Weaselboy]

The site runs on Xenforo software, and from what I can tell the software does not support HEIC.

 

[D.T.]

@Huntn

It's not really MR (or the underlying forum software), it's browser support in general.

 

[Huntn]

The site runs on Xenforo software, and from what I can tell the software does not support HEIC.

Maybe in the future.
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@Huntn

It's not really MR (or the underlying forum software), it's browser support in general.

@Huntn

It's not really MR (or the underlying forum software), it's browser support in general.

But it’s MR’s software that decides what graphic format it accepts?

 

[D.T.]

But it’s MR’s software that decides what graphic format it accepts?

The browser can't display it, so the developers don't currently support it as an upload format, seems like a sensible design decision. The system does allow upload of non-media formats, but they're things like .ZIP files, meant for download. The expected behavior of an image is to be displayed inline, as the SRC value to an IMG (image) tag, so an HEIx format would be posted for download, which I'd assume isn't the intent of uploading an image

FYI, you can setup an iOS Shortcut that converts to JPG, and I've got one that converts _and_ resizes to 1200px or 1800px to account for image size limits for forums (and also removes meta-data and sticks the resulting output in an Upload Album).

 

[maflynn]

Apple Cutting Edge as usual:

I could be wrong, but isnt' HEIC proprietary? Its not a universal standard and may never be. To that point Xenforo may never support it, and to my knowledge Chrome and other browser don't support it natively though there may be plugins.

HEIC used to give me fits and starts because so little apps supported it, I've made sure when I get a new iPhone, I turn on JPG and not use HEIC

 

[Weaselboy]

Maybe in the future.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/heif-heic-support-comes-with-ios-11.131340/

I did find this from 2017 from one of the Xenforo devs and he does not show much interest.

 

[Huntn]

I could be wrong, but isnt' HEIC proprietary? Its not a universal standard and may never be. To that point Xenforo may never support it, and to my knowledge Chrome and other browser don't support it natively though there may be plugins.

HEIC used to give me fits and starts because so little apps supported it, I've made sure when I get a new iPhone, I turn on JPG and not use HEIC

Proprietary is troubling if it is not generally accepted. My impression which may be wrong is that Apple has released other standards that have been adopted, if this is Apple tech?

 

[maflynn]

Proprietary is troubling if it is not generally accepted. My impression which may be wrong is that Apple has released other standards that have been adopted, if this is Apple tech?

I don't know, but I don't see much going on in the world of HEIC other then apple defaulting it on their iPhone and that has caused some headaches for me (until I figured out that it was HEIC and then turned it off)

 

[Huntn]

I don't know, but I don't see much going on in the world of HEIC other then apple defaulting it on their iPhone and that has caused some headaches for me (until I figured out that it was HEIC and then turned it off)

I may turn it off. The idea that is saves on storage space is attractive, but then you have to convert it if you want to export it anywhere.

 

[I7guy]

Sorry for asking maybe a "dumb" question, but I'm not clear on the issue.

I have HEIC enabled and I've uploaded photos from my photo album to MR website and the uploads went fine. I assume IOS converts HEIC to JPG on the upload.

 

[D.T.]

Sorry for asking maybe a "dumb" question, but I'm not clear on the issue.

I have HEIC enabled and I've uploaded photos from my photo album to MR website and the uploads went fine. I assume IOS converts HEIC to JPG on the upload.

Yeah, I was talking more actual .HEIC image sitting on a computer since it seemed to be a question of HTML file uploader/selector mask not allowing it to be chosen (since it's not directly browser compatible).

... but anyway, many sharing methods through the phone, including using an HTML/web based selector like browser >> select file, there is a conversion (it's not unlike sharing a "live photo", it just shares the static JPG portion, not the MPG movie). In fact, I think the only methods that preserves it is an AirShare drop (and even then, an edited photo becomes a JPG, I think I went through all these gyrations when the format was available on iOS), or some kind of direct file storage save like DropBox, iCloud.

I prefer to have a little better control with the final output, especially with regard to size, which is generally why I use a Shortcut to generate a really friendly output spec for forums (especially with regard to size - though 98% of the time I'm on a computer, so it also let's me drop to my Mac and not have to convert to JPG on the receiving end (which is pretty easy too with preview >> export).

 

[D.T.]

Proprietary is troubling if it is not generally accepted. My impression which may be wrong is that Apple has released other standards that have been adopted, if this is Apple tech?

The specification is from MPEG, which is a group that creates standards for photo/video/audio, so I'd guess it's "open" (though there's some murky waters with regards to licensing for various file formats). It's actually a container specification, in that it can hold different media types with different encoding (like video is H.264).