HEIC Format Support

[chuyskywalker]

It'd be kinda nice if I could upload images in HEIC format and have the forum auto-convert them.

Yes, I know how to do it locally, it'd just save a step or two which encourages people to do it and leads to better topics (because pictures are always better).

I did some rudimentary searching to see if XF supports it, but didn't turn up much, alas.

 

[neptronix]

Unfortunately it's such a rare format that very little software supports.
Chrome browser doesn't support it for example, and that's like ~60% of the browser market. Edge is also chrome, which is another 10%

Here's what browser support looks like for heic for a grim picture:
"HEIC" | Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc

I could devise software to convert it on the backend to a hyper optimized jpeg, but..
- no way xenforo is going to support it on the frontend
- the language we use also doesn't support it natively through the libraries xenforo uses
Therefore it'd be some work to hack in and maintain, and it's hard to justify doing that

Is it possible that you apple device could save a common web format?

 

[chuyskywalker]

Unfortunately it's such a rare format that very little software supports.
Chrome browser doesn't support it for example, and that's like ~60% of the browser market. Edge is also chrome, which is another 10%

Yeah, I wouldn't expect accepting it as an upload format and just spitting it right back out in an <img> element would work. It'd have to be, as we both suspect:

I could devise software to convert it on the backend to a hyper optimized jpeg, but..
- no way xenforo is going to support it on the frontend
- the language we use also doesn't support it natively through the libraries xenforo uses
Therefore it'd be some work to hack in and maintain, and it's hard to justify doing that

Something like that; accept HEICs, but auto-convert them to JPEG. I'd kind hoped the format had been around long enough now (about 8 years I think?) that the forums ecosystem would have a plugin or something.

Is it possible that you apple device could save a common web format?

It is, but every iOS user would have to set that which is less than ideal; likely not a realistic solution at large. Since it's not a default option, changing it is buried under several layers, and lastly it's arguably a bad option. A lot of what I'm reading shows HEIC stores better quality at lower size, so going to JPEG on personal devices for one forum is a pretty stark negative

---

In all honesty, I was just putting it out there since you're much more familiar with this system than I am (last forum software I ran was/is punbb, lol) and I was hoping you're better familiarity would be like, "Oh, yeah, I found X that could work". If that's a strike out, it is what it is.

 

[chuyskywalker]

Huh, on a hunch I did find this: Heic2any: Client-side conversion of HEIC/HEIF image files to JPEG, PNG, or GIF in the browser.

 

[neptronix]

I don't think that will ever get mainstream adoption because this is apple's random pet format.
Chrome is also holding back jpeg-xl which is, in every way, better than jpeg, which is quite frustrating.

Interesting that there's a client side solution - this may be easier to adapt. Tell you what - we will at least look into it, and if we can do it in less than 5 days of work, it's worth doing. I've added this to the ES 2.4 plan.

 

[neptronix]

Actually i looked into this library and it looks like it won't accept new HEIC files because Apple changed the format.
I'm not surprised. We'll put some effort into seeing if some other alternative exists.

 

[neptronix]

Something like that; accept HEICs, but auto-convert them to JPEG. I'd kind hoped the format had been around long enough now (about 8 years I think?) that the forums ecosystem would have a plugin or something.

WebP, another odd duck that's ~2% better than jpeg ( when you use cjpegli like we do ), and much slower to encode/decode just barely got supported some decade later. It still has the problem where most image handling software can't use it, so we don't use webp

It is, but every iOS user would have to set that which is less than ideal; likely not a realistic solution at large. Since it's not a default option, changing it is buried under several layers, and lastly it's arguably a bad option. A lot of what I'm reading shows HEIC stores better quality at lower size, so going to JPEG on personal devices for one forum is a pretty stark negative

Actually if you upload a jpeg here and we run our compressor on it, quality per bit ends up great.
A big problem with weird nonstandard formats is that most image editors on Windows and Linux can't open them.
So even if you can get the weird format working on the browser, you just have other problems down the line as a result of that choice.
It's too bad Apple makes this the default and forces the user to hunt for an option to use a standard format. But that doesn't surprise me.

We will give this a try but not spend a ton of time on it.

 

[chuyskywalker]

HEIC files because Apple changed the format

Huh, I uploaded an image I took...in the last 2 days to the tester tool and got back the gif just fine.

 

[neptronix]

Okay i looked into it more.
There were multiple github issues on that code and it hasn't been maintained in a few years so it seemed dead but there are possibly some workarounds for it.

One comment points to: https://github.com/hoppergee/heic-to
Which seems up to date.

Having at least two working approaches improves the chance of success here.
I'll let @kauaicycler judge the task difficulty from here because he's way better with javascript and actually owns a mac ( i'm a BSD/Linux guy ), so he could experiment with test images better than i can

 

[BlueSwordM]

lul no.

If we were to add image support, it would be AV1/AVIF and JPEG-XL.

 

[neptronix]

I'm a huge fan of jpeg-xl. It's a travesty that google screwed over the guy who built it in favor of the much inferior webp and removed support from chrome.
That guy actually works for google.
We got the second best, cjpegli instead.

Sad that only apple implemented jpeg xl also :/

 

[amberwolf]

I'd kind hoped the format had been around long enough now (about 8 years I think?) that the forums ecosystem would have a plugin or something.

FWIW, I deal with a lot of images (and conversions) in my websearches for all sorts of things, as I prefer to save images I want to refer to locally, and I have never run into an HEIC image.... (never heard of them before this thread).

My brother uses iPads and takes pictures with them, but whenever he sends me any they are always JPG (he doesn't do the conversion, if one is being done, I don't think he even knows there *are* different image file types).

Not sure if that says anything for the popularity of the format.

 

[amberwolf]

( when you use cjpegli like we do )

Does it say anything about my brain that everytime I see that word I can only see "jpegcli"; I have to force myself to go one letter at a time to see the correct "cjpegli"?

 

[chuyskywalker]

My brother uses iPads and takes pictures with them, but whenever he sends me any they are always JPG

iOS stores images in HEIC and, I believe the OS offers a simple "to jpeg" solution such that most times an image is leaving the phone, it's converted on the way out by the app. My photo backup system (Synology NAS) is a bit more raw and backs up the native HEIC files.

 

[amberwolf]

Makes sense for what we see.

I wish everything could just be uncompressed, or losslessly so (like FLAC with audio).


But the bandwidth...

 

[chuyskywalker]

For the sake of trying it, posting from my phone.



Yeah, auto convert to jpeg.