1402293 - (HEIF) Implement support for High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF)

Status: NEW

(Core :: Graphics: ImageLib, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Kai Petzke]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0
Build ID: 20170418123818

Steps to reproduce:

Try to load an heif image


Actual results:

Image is not shown


Expected results:

The image should be shown.

HEIF is the new image format for iPhone und iPad from iOS 11 onward. HEIF is used by default by the camera on iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. After upgrading to iOS 11, HEIF is also used on iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Therefore, consumers will soon have Billions of HEIF images, and it would be a pity, if firefox cannot display them properly.

Comment 1

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

It's patented, so it's unlikely that it will be implanted into Firefox.

Comment 2

[zjtwkgkz]

HEIF is already positioned to become mainstream. HEVC is everywhere. The question is how many users will Firefox lose until it is dragged into making some progress.

JPEG is ancient, and HEVC has been royalty-free for browsers for a few months now:
http://x265.org/hevc-advance-announces-royalty-free-hevc-software/

Comment 3

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

Some links with info:
https://github.com/nokiatech/heif
https://nokiatech.github.io/heif/
https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-h/image-file-format

Comment 4

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Safari doesn't support HEIF (https://tests.caniuse.com/?feat=heif) so there's currently no reason we'd want to support this.

http://x265.org/hevc-advance-announces-royalty-free-hevc-software/ only talks about the HEVC Advance patent pool allowing browsers to implement it. Are there a comparable announcement from the other patent pools? (velosmedia and MPEGLA)

Comment 5

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

(In reply to Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel] from comment #4)
> Safari doesn't support HEIF (https://tests.caniuse.com/?feat=heif)

Adding to this source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022
> Support for HEIF and HEVC is built into iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra,
> letting you work with this media in a variety of apps,
> including Photos, iMovie, and QuickTime Player.

> When you share HEIF or HEVC media using other methods,
> such as AirDrop, Messages, or email,
> it's shared in a more compatible format, such as JPEG or H.264.

> When you import HEIF or HEVC media from an attached iOS device
> to Photos, Image Capture, or a PC,
> the media might be converted to JPEG or H.264.



Some other sources about HEIF and Apple:
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-answers-iphone-storage-woes-with-smaller-photos-videos/
https://www.macworld.com/article/3226490/ios/ios-11-hevc-heif-and-what-you-need-to-know-about-these-new-video-and-photo-formats.html
https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/heif-and-hevc-ios-11-macos-high-sierra/



Android P will also have HEIF support
> We're excited to add HEIF (heic) image encoding to the platform.
> HEIF is a popular format for photos that improves compression
> to save on storage and network data. With platform support
> on Android P devices, it's easy to send and utilize HEIF images
> from your backend server. Once you've made sure that your app
> is compatible with this data format for sharing and display,
> give HEIF a try as an image storage format in your app.
> You can do a jpeg-to-heic conversion using ImageDecoder
> or BitmapFactory to obtain a bitmap from jpeg,
> and you can use HeifWriter in the new Support Library alpha
> to write HEIF still images from YUV byte buffer, Surface, or Bitmap. 
source: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/03/previewing-android-p.html



Nokia supports the format and has released an open source JavaScript HEIF decoder on GitHub that works on a web browser.
sources:
https://github.com/nokiatech/heif
http://blog.jpegmini.com/move-over-jpeg-here-comes-heif/

Comment 6

[Diego Casorran [:diegocr]]

> Nokia supports the format and has released an open source JavaScript HEIF decoder on GitHub that works on a web browser.

The licence in that Nokia repo doesn't look open source (?)

> It's patented, so it's unlikely that it will be implanted into Firefox.

Yeah it's patented, but i think Firefox could use the Windows's build-in WIC codecs?

Comment 7

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

(In reply to Diego Casorran [:diegocr] from comment #6)
> > Nokia supports the format and has released an open source JavaScript HEIF decoder on GitHub that works on a web browser.
> 
> The licence in that Nokia repo doesn't look open source (?)
I don't know, I not specialist in open source licenses field.


(In reply to Diego Casorran [:diegocr] from comment #6)
> > It's patented, so it's unlikely that it will be implanted into Firefox.
> 
> Yeah it's patented, but i think Firefox could use the Windows's build-in WIC
> codecs?
"HEIF itself is a container, and when containing images and image sequences encoded in a particular format (e.g., HEVC or H.264/AVC), its use becomes subject to the licensing of patents on the coding format. Generally, lawful use of a patented invention requires the patent holder's permission in countries where the patent is in force (see patent infringement)." - so it doesn't look good for Firefox implementation support of High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF).

Comment 8

[Stig Nygaard]

HEIF format will also be supported by the forthcoming Canon EOS 1DX Mark III:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/9403791832/canon-aims-to-keep-professionals-pleased-with-the-eos-1d-x-mark-iii

Comment 9

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Added dev-doc-needed, as once this format is implemented, documentation, BCD, and possibly other databases (hopefully by then we'll have a "file format compatibility" database) will need updating to recognize it. This one feels like it's more likely than some of the others, despite the patent situation, just because HEIF is one that's fairly widely used.

Comment 10

[Mikhail T.]

Considering existing implementations in open-source projects like ImageMagick (for over two years!), I think, we can dispense with using "license" as an excuse...

An IM can not only read such files, but also create new ones!

Comment 11

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

I think, we can dispense with using "license" as an excuse...

The question was about the patents, not the license.