JPG and MP4 file formats will soon be no more. For years photo and video formats on smartphones and tablets but also on PCs have been in this format. These will be replaced by HEVC and HEIF as the future of multimedia files formats. But what do these acronyms represent and how can they improve the use of our devices?
What are HEIF and HEVC?
- HEVC: This is a high efficiency compression standard usually used for video and also called H.265.
- HEIF: is a container image file format that incorporates other important data.
The latter term refers to a digital container in which photos and other data with different extensions can be stored, such as JPG, but not only. The former term refers to a video encoding system whose result can be stored in different digital containers such as, for example, MOV or even HEIF, as mentioned above. Confused? Let us make it clear.
HEVC
This also called H.265, it is the successor of the now universally used AVC/H.264. It is a high efficiency compression standard that can support resolutions up to 8192×4320 and 8K UHD. HEVC has been designed with the aim of reducing the bitrate in video while maintaining the same quality at the cost of greater computational complexity. This codec is also used to compress images inside the HEIF containers described above.
As already happens in the H.264 codec, HEVC controls the frames of the image stream in search of areas where they are redundant both within the same image and within consecutive frames. These redundant areas are then replaced by a description of the area itself instead of the individual pixels in order to occupy less space in the memory.
Key changes for HEVC include expanding the areas of model comparison and encoding differences from 16×16 pixels to 64×64 pixels, improving variable size segmentation, better intra-forecast within the same image, better motion vector prediction and motion region fusion, better motion compensation filtering, and a further filtration step called adaptive sample offset filtering.
HEIF
Acronym of High Efficiency Image File Format, HEIF is a format used to contain single or multiple images. Files using this format can host at the same time high quality images compressed with the HEVC codec (which we will talk about later) and further information related to these images also of a different type.
HEIF can efficiently contain some image transformations such as for example:
- Rotation of the image by 90, 180, or 270 degrees.
- Crop the image given a certain rectangle.
- Overlapping any number of incoming images in the order and positions indicated on the source image’s canvas window.
These operations are saved inside the container as instructions for the imager to perform. This means that the original image is not changed (it preserves the shot, it is not overwritten with changes) or compressed again at the end of the operation, thus avoiding loss of quality.
Which devices have these formats?
HEIF and HEVC files can be found on some of the most modern devices. For example, Apple has introduced support for this type of file on iOS 11, so you can capture photos and record videos in high efficiency formats on iPhone 7 and later (playback is supported up to iPhone 5S but with limitations). Of course, some iPads with iOS 11 and Macs updated to MacOS High Sierra can also play these files.
Apple uses the .heic (.heics for image sequences) extension for images, but supports playback of .heifs (.heifs for image sequences) files produced by third parties. Recorded videos are saved by Apple devices in .mov format like normal videos but are still encoded using the HEVC/H.265 codec.
In the Android world, official support for these formats has arrived at different times: HEVC is supported since Android Lollipop while HEIF was introduced only recently with Android P (available in a first Developer Preview) even if the Google Pixel Camera application of first or second generation still does not have the option related to their use.
Samsung allows you to record HEVC encoded video files on the new Galaxy S9 and S9+ even if it does not have the HEIF format for saving photos. It seems that the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S will also have HEVC codecs for videos.
Benefits of HEIF and HEVC?
The main reason we should encourage ourselves to use these new image and video file formats is because they are more efficient. As we know, on smartphones the available space is never enough and thanks to these formats it is possible to store the same number of files at the same quality but in less space or the same number of files in higher quality but occupying the same amount of memory.
According to the HEIF standard, it is possible to save twice as much information in these files as in a JPG file of the same size and even higher quality. To say that the result is impressive is understatement.
You’ll understand that every megabyte is vital on smartphones that have 32GB of internal memory or less and these new formats promise to take many more photos and record many more videos before running out of space.
