About the Heic file format
- Name
- High Efficiency Image Format
- Extension
- .heic
- Format
- Binary
- Category
- Raster Image
- Developer
- Moving Picture Experts Group
- Description
- An image file format mainly used in storing cell phone photos and they are saved in the High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF). They store one or more images and the metadata description for each image. Also known as .heif files
- MIME Type
- image/heic
- Sample
- sample.heic
- Wikipedia
- .heic on Wikipedia
The High Efficiency Image Container (HEIC) format is HEVC in HEIF. High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container image format used to store either still or multiple image sequences coded in different codecs. It supports different multimedia files including video, audio, and timed texts.
Developed by MPEG, it can store twice as much data as a JPEG file of the same size with better quality images. The file container stores individual images, thumbnails, burst-photo shots, EXIF details, animations, alpha plane and depth map image properties.
The High Efficiency Video Coding HEVC compression algorithm makes it a suitable image format for next-generation photo requirements. HEVC makes it possible to manually fine-tune the orientation and reframe a still image or a series of images without re-encoding. For this reason, all HEVC image players need to support 90 degrees rotation and rectangular cropping.
The image sequence tracks have to be either inter picture predicted or intra-coded images. This ensures there is low latency when accessing the images especially where there is real-time image interaction.
Thanks to it’s small size and better image quality, Apple upgraded millions of iOS devices to the HEIC file format. They were the first major HEIC adopters in 2017. It provided the perfect solution to iPhone’s limited storage. Their images now come the .heic file extension which is only used by the HEVC encoded HEIF files.
