Iphone 7 Plus and HEIC files on the phone

[kiwilink]

Can you tell me how IMATCH handles HEIC images?  I just copied images from my Iphone 7 Plus and then imported them into IMATCH.  It looks like IMATCH created a Jpeg for some of the HEIC images.  Is that possible or was it a setting on my phone that did this?  How should I best handle these in IMATCH (My Windows 10 does not display them).

Thanks!

Kiwilink

[Mario]

HEIC is a format that is currently only supported by Apple.
It has many patents attached and royalties need to be paid annually to Nokia and others, which further complicates things.
Why users allow Apple to lock their files into a patent-ridden and intentionally not-free format like HEVC/HEIF is beyond me. This is even worse than other patented video formats.
But Apple users are special so I don't argue.

Microsoft has included "support" for HEVC in the Fall Creators Update. You need to install some Windows Codecs I think to make it work. There should be a prompt when you first try to view a .HEIC file in Windows 10 Fotos. Maybe installing this codec also adds the capability for Windows to render previews/thumbnails which would also enable that for IMatch.
My tests show that this HEIC codec only supports a subset of files (videos) but not images (with the .HEIC) extension.

Note: I have only a small set of reference HEIC files in my collection. It possible, send me some sample files or upload them somewhere.

[sinus]

But Apple users are special so I don't argue.

I agree. 
A lot of my collegues and in the photographic industry use Apple.
And these special people made Apple a "one Trillion (Billion in Europe, 860 Milliarden Euro)" - company. 

$1,000,000,000,000

btw, I use Windows. 

[ubacher]

Are the HEIC files on your system? I think I have read that the usual way to transfer these files actually creates and transfers
a jpg file.

[Mario]

The sample HEIC files I have here fail to show in Windows Explorer or Windows Photo. Even after installing the HECV codec. Some videos show now, though.
Not even the free ffmpeg software can process these files. As I said, HEIC is the next file format desaster coming.

It can come in so many variants (its a container format) and each stream can be in another format.
Like MP4, just much worse.

And I doubt that small software companies are able to afford the annual license fees and royalty payments tied into HEIF/HECV. Apple, Adobe etc. can, of course. So this is another technology which plays into the hands of the big companies. And people just use it because Apple does not tell them all this, just tells them that HEIC files are smaller and "better". And Apple users either have no chance (Apple thinks for them) or they don't bother.

In general, I despise file formats which incorporate software patents. These works only in the hands of the big software houses and make users depend on them.

[Jingo]

Apple Marketing at work... "use HEIC - save space on your phone...!"

Of course 95% of iphone users don't EVER look at their photos on a PC nor do anything with them besides posting to social media and.... just storing them on their phone.

These free addons might help solve the HEIC view problem for Win10 users (don't use Apple so I haven't tried them personally):

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-view-hevc-or-heic-files-in-windows-10-for-free-1827094768

[Mario]

I think this post is outdated. The Fall Creators update for W10 includes the HEIC support, except for the codec which needs to be installed manually - Microsoft has to pay license fees for every user who downloads it and hence saves some money by making it optional. I think just trying to view a HEIC file in WIndows Photo offers the free download of the codec. The other one still costs money.

[herman]

IMO from a photographer's point of view HEIC offers no advantages.
The only thing where it may have some benefit is if storage space on your device is low.
If you want to view HEIC images in IMatch or Windows you need a JPG to go with it, so you have to shoot HEIC + JPG, which immediately destroys your storage space savings.

If you do want to do some post-processing on your images you might consider to shoot DNG + JPG.
The native Apple Camera app can not handle this, but there are third-party apps which can.
I use Camera-M myself, highly recommended!
Your 7 Plus is supported by DxO (and probably PhotoShop / LR as well), giving you some more headroom and less compression artifacts with your images.

[kiwilink]

Mario and Everyone:

Thanls for the reply.  Mario I will send you some samples.  I was shooting pics and 4K videos with the phone on a vacation hike.  I went into the phone (Settings/Photos and at the bottom is a setting that says "Transfer to MAC or PC" ("Automatically transfer photos or videos in a compatible format, or always transfer the original file without checking for compatibility").  There are two choices (Automatic or Keep Originals).  I tried both when copying the images to my Windows 10 machine via Windows Explorer but no matter which choice I choose it transfers HEIC.  I also went to Settings/Camera/Formats on my phone and choose "Most Compatible".  The last update set it to "High Efficiency".  I have been researching and there are a few 3rd party programs that will convert them from HEIC to JPEG but I did not do this because I remember Mario correctly saying that these programs can alter the Metadata and I don't want to do this.

For now, I'm testing with my phone to see if I can get the correct settings so I never end up with HEIC but I hope I can figure out what to do with the ones I just shot on vacation so I can get them into IMATCH.  I'm now worried about the 4K videos I also shot because they look like the normal .Mov that the phone captured before the update but maybe the update put a special container on these that will cause problems when I play them back on my 4K TV.

Thanks for the help.  I will zip and send some samples to you Mario via email.  Thanks for the responses Jingo, Ubacher, Sinus, herman, and Mario.

Kiwilink

[Datameta]

I'm using a (paid) iOS backup tool (basically a much better iTunes) that automatically generates jpg's during export. Somewhere I read this is the standard when exporting to a non-Apple OS.

[Mario]

@kiwilink

Thanks for the two sample files.
I have tested them on Windows 10, after installing the free Microsoft codec (see above).
IMatch loads the files just fine, ExifTool imports 120+ metadata tags and IMatch can pull a thumbnail thumbnail via the Windows thumbnail service. So far so good.

(I have many other HEIC/HEIF files which still fail. That's one of the typical "generic container" format problems - too many variants and never support for all...)

I have configured heif to be treated using the video pipleine and since ffmpeg cannot process the file, we cannot get a preview. Since after installing the Microsoft HEIC codec I have now a WIC codec (!) which reports HEIC support, I will add a second layer of processing for these files. This should allow IMatch to display them in the Viewer and the Quick View Panel. This is why WIC is such a good idea - if there is a codec, all apps can handle the file. Too bad that camera vendors discontinue support for WIC - it could be so easy...

Question: Does your phone use the same file extension for videos and still images?
The spec (https://nokiatech.github.io/heif/technical.html) lists the same extension for images and "sequences" (which can be a video or just a bunch of images).

[Mario]

Oookayyy...this was more complicated than anticipated.

Because, even when a WIC codec is installed, the tried-and-trusted image library I use in the image plugin failed to load the HEIC files with an "Invalid file format" error. Hm...
Not much I can do about that. FFMPEG also does not support the files in the latest edition.

I could load the file in the Microsoft WIC test suite so the WIC codec supported it.
So I went bare metal (despite the 40° C in my Office) and implemented an extension for my image loader plug-in to deal with HEIC files with direct WIC routines. It took a few hours to figure everything out (the WIC documentation from Microsoft is a shame, with non-working or incomplete examples, different info for the same routines in different places, etc.) but now IMatch loads HEIF files and can display them in the Viewer, Quick View Panel and Slide Show. Thumbnails to, of course.

[kiwilink]

Mario:

I apologize for the late response here.  Just got back from a hiking vacation and had to wait for Apple to respond to a ticket I opened about the HEIC/HEVC files appearing on my phone.  Bottom line is the Sr engineers at Apple don't know very much about the HEIC/HEVC files for photos and videos and are still waiting for engineers to provide them answers.  Apple says if I choose "Keep originals" under "Settings/Photos" I can transfer to my desktop native HEIC (pics) and HEVC (videos) or choose "Automatic" and the phone will convert them to JPG/AVC-H.264.  The problem is the videos crash after a handful of trying to convert HEVC to H.264.

Just to be safe I copied them using "Keep Originals" and after 16 crash attempts I was finally able to have the phone convert the HEVC videos using "Automatic".  I now have both but I don't plan on shooting HEIC and HEVC in the future because of the problems I experienced.  Apple says to go to "Settings/Camera/formats" and choose "Most Compatible" so your phone will go back to the way the settings were before the last update and will revert to shooting JPG and H.264.

Now that I have a vacation full of HEIC files,  I brought them into IMATCH and I don't see the thumbnail or the file in viewer (see attachment).  Maybe I lack a Codec, I'm not sure.  Anyway, after I read your earlier post I thought I should mention it in case others run into the same issue.

Mario, this is no big issue because I also have the images converted to JPG so no worry but I wanted to mention what I see on my system (I'm running the latest 2018 release (2018.8.6).

Thanks for the response above and sorry I was late answering (I was waiting on Apple and still am to find out why their conversion of HEVC ends in errors).

Kiwilink

[Mario]

This can only work when you install the Windows WIC codec for HEIF (see my comments above).
Then select all images and force a rescan..

To see if the WIC codec for HEIF is installed, select a file and go to Help > Support > WIC diagnosis.

From my experience, the WIC codec only supports images, no videos. To convert your videos into one of the established standard video formats you will need some external software. Usually the awesome ffmpeg is great for that, but it does not support HEIF videos at this time. Maybe some Apple or Adobe software.

[kiwilink]

Thank you Mario.  Installed it and everything works.

[Mario]

Still, these patent-ridden file formats are a real mess.

Support for it in the cross-platform open source community will not happen or take a long time.
Adobe, Apple and Microsoft have enough money and legal departments large enough to figure out and pay the license fees.
Smaller software houses cannot.

Even Microsoft made the support an option and only pays royalties for installations which download the WIC codec.
That's the reason why HEIF support is not built-in in Windows and available as an option only.

HEIF pretty much locks you into the Apple platform or Adobe world right now. This can never be good for users...

[kiwilink]

Hi Mario

I agree completely and hopefully folks using an Iphone will go into their settings and make sure they choose "Most Compatible" as I mentioned earlier.

kiwilink

[Mario]

Typically, Apple users don't think that way. They live in a bubble.