Problems with heic-files

[frlindla]

Many heic-files won`t display in the Viewer. I get the Message: "This file can not be displayed". What is wrong?

[Mario]

HEIC is a file format that is heavily protected with software patents and not widely supported (except by Apple).
Everybody (except for open source projects) using HEIC/HEIF has to make deals with patent lawyers and the MPEG, and then pay fees to companies like Nokia and others. Very unfortunate.

IMatch cannot (and does not) support it ouf of the box, it supports it via the WIC codecs installed on your system.

Windows does not include HEIF/HEIC support by default, because Microsoft has to pay money to the patent holders for every user who installs HEIC/HEIF support.
You must install the HEIC extensions for Windows 10 manually, from

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/hevc-video-extensions-from-device-manufacturer/9n4wgh0z6vhq?irgwc=1&OCID=AID681541_aff_7593_159229&tduid=%28ir__uzbcwcjoigkfrk1pkk0sohz30m2xmqnw0dn9ocgw00%29%287593%29%28159229%29%28%29%28UUwpUdUnU56887%29&irclickid=_uzbcwcjoigkfrk1pkk0sohz30m2xmqnw0dn9ocgw00&activetab=pivot:overviewtab

or whatever matches your language. Reboot.

Then select all HEIC/HEIF files in an IMatch and do a forced rescan with Shift+Ctrl+F5.
This will re-create all thumbnails and cache images with thei now installed HEIC support. If this still does not handle some of your files,. they are unsupported.

HEIC is a realy bad format. Patent-ridden and not free. I hope it goes the same way as JPEG2000 and others.
Appel naturally favors HEIC because they

- hold parents on it and so get money when others want to use it and
- it's a sort of lock-in mechanism, because users cannot easily use their HEIC/HEIF files on other operating systems and platforms
- (mainly) to make files a bit smaller so they can get away with smaller memory and disks in their devices to keep the manufacture cost down (and make more profit)

[frlindla]

When I did this it seems that every heic-file now have a jpg-file. What i mean is that for every photo there is both a jpg and a heic: two photos With the same filename. Is this right? Is it safe to delete all heic-files that are duplicates?

[Mario]

What did you do?
Did you install the official Windows HEIF decoder extension? This is just a WIC codec that can be used by IMatch to extract images from HEIC files. Like any other WIC codec.
You can see this in the Windows Control Panel > Add/Remove software applet.

As far as I can tell from experience (and I just double-checked a minute ago) the WIC codec does not produce JPEG files. And neither does IMatch.

[frlindla]

Well, I think I followed your instructions. But as you can see in my attacthed file, there is an example here that I have 5 dupliates in Imatch. What can be wrong and how can I solve it?

[Mario]

IMatch does not create JPEG files automatically.
By the looks of the file names, with the (1) and (2).... added to the file name, this looks to me like you have accidentally pressed Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C several times in Windows Explorer?
If you copy a file in the same folder in IMatch, it appends -1 -2  to make the file name unique. Windows Explorer appends (1), (2), ... in that case.

[frlindla]

Ok. But I guess these are duplicates that are safe to delete?

[Mario]

If you don't need them...