Anyone know an HEIC image converter for XP? I tried
a couple of things. So far nothing works, though they all
seem to try to go online.

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On Sat, 9 Apr 2022 20:35:23 -0400, Mayayana wrote:

Anyone know an HEIC image converter for XP? I tried
a couple of things. So far nothing works, though they all
seem to try to go online.

For media related, ffmpeg is the ultimate conversion tool. You won't need
any other unless you're dealing with media with new proprietary format.

But you might want to find the one which is compiled to support WinXP.
i.e. either compiled with MinGW/Cygwin, or with older MSVC runtime library which still support WinXP. Newer MSVC runtime library no longer support
WinXP (sic).

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On Sun, 10 Apr 2022 11:47:23 +0700, JJ <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 9 Apr 2022 20:35:23 -0400, Mayayana wrote:

Anyone know an HEIC image converter for XP? I tried
a couple of things. So far nothing works, though they all
seem to try to go online.

For media related, ffmpeg is the ultimate conversion tool. You won't need
any other unless you're dealing with media with new proprietary format.

But you might want to find the one which is compiled to support WinXP.
i.e. either compiled with MinGW/Cygwin, or with older MSVC runtime library >which still support WinXP. Newer MSVC runtime library no longer support
WinXP (sic).

FFMpeg dropped support for HEIC in 2021.

Using ffmpeg-4.5-3408-c417616(compiled jan 2022 for XP)

ffmpeg -i image1.heic image1.jpg

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 05068700] moov atom not found
image1.heic: Invalid data found when processing input

Maybe if the OP has an older version he can do it.. I did try
some from 2019 and 2020, but same error message.
Irfanview and GIMP also didn't work.
FWIW
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012
Google Fuchsia - 2021

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"Shadow" <Sh@dow.br> wrote

|
| FFMpeg dropped support for HEIC in 2021.
|
| Using ffmpeg-4.5-3408-c417616(compiled jan 2022 for XP)
|
| ffmpeg -i image1.heic image1.jpg
|
| [mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 05068700] moov atom not found
| image1.heic: Invalid data found when processing input
|
| Maybe if the OP has an older version he can do it.. I did try
| some from 2019 and 2020, but same error message.
| Irfanview and GIMP also didn't work.

Thanks for that info. As far as I can tell, GIMP supports
it only recently and that support doesn't work properly.
And of course, newer GIMP doesn't support XP. It's also
not clear whether Apple's HEIC is compatible with the HEIF
standard. Even Adobe's latest Photoshop only supports
it through extensions from the Microsoft Store. It looks
like nearly everything is built on top of libheif, if I could
only get that working.

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"JJ" <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote

| For media related, ffmpeg is the ultimate conversion tool. You won't need
| any other unless you're dealing with media with new proprietary format.
|
This is an image format, not video. We got a photo sent
from someone with an iPhone. Apparently HEIC is now being
set as the default format for photos on iPhones. And of course,
Apple fans usually have no idea what a file type is. So suddenly
they're sending out proprietary Apple image format.

From what I've been able to find, Win11 and later Win10
support it in a built-in image viewer. And there's a commercial
product at the "Microsoft Store". (Which is very weird. They
offer an app but not Win32 software.)

I tried some programs, but none seems to work. I also found
libheif. The companion commandline program heif-convert.exe
is said to work with a simple command: heif-convert source dest
The program runs but does nothing, stays loaded, and shows no
error message. There are also some websites that claim to
convert it. And I found a converter sample of libheif as javascript
in a webpage, but I also don't seem to be able to get that to work.
Like libheif, the script runs but seems to hang.

I'm guessing that it's probably a very big job to
use heif.dll directly, and likely not feasible from VB6... And I'm
not sure I care that much. But it would be nice to have something
to convert it.

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On Sun, 10 Apr 2022 08:27:11 -0400, Mayayana wrote:

"JJ" <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote

| For media related, ffmpeg is the ultimate conversion tool. You won't need
| any other unless you're dealing with media with new proprietary format.
|
This is an image format, not video. We got a photo sent
from someone with an iPhone. Apparently HEIC is now being
set as the default format for photos on iPhones. And of course,
Apple fans usually have no idea what a file type is. So suddenly
they're sending out proprietary Apple image format.

From what I've been able to find, Win11 and later Win10
support it in a built-in image viewer. And there's a commercial
product at the "Microsoft Store". (Which is very weird. They
offer an app but not Win32 software.)

I tried some programs, but none seems to work. I also found
libheif. The companion commandline program heif-convert.exe
is said to work with a simple command: heif-convert source dest
The program runs but does nothing, stays loaded, and shows no
error message. There are also some websites that claim to
convert it. And I found a converter sample of libheif as javascript
in a webpage, but I also don't seem to be able to get that to work.
Like libheif, the script runs but seems to hang.

I'm guessing that it's probably a very big job to
use heif.dll directly, and likely not feasible from VB6... And I'm
not sure I care that much. But it would be nice to have something
to convert it.

Check this. Long URL warning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/comments/778t43/heic_got_you_down_i_got_the_cure/

And quote:
`Then I thought, "well wait a minute, HEIC is basically just a single frame
of H.265.`

To be precise, it's a single H.265 Intra frame. In MPEG-based or MPEG-like video encoding, there are [I]ntra, [B]i-directional, and [P]redictive frame types. Intra frame is the complete image without dependecy of any previous frame/data.

Another example: an Intra frame of an MPEG-1/2 video, is a JPEG image. On
the other hand, an MJPEG video is just an MPEG-1/2 video with nothing but I frames.

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On 4/9/2022 8:35 PM, Mayayana wrote:

Anyone know an HEIC image converter for XP? I tried
a couple of things. So far nothing works, though they all
seem to try to go online.

Found some HEIC samples, dropped them on "ImageMagic-Display"
icon on my desktop, and they rendered. But, they look dreadful.

To vet a converter candidate, we'd need a HECI+JPG pair,
so we can tell where the fault lies. Maybe the JPG version
also looks bad.

Paul

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On Mon, 11 Apr 2022 at 09:46:25, JJ <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote (my
responses usually FOLLOW):
[]

`Then I thought, "well wait a minute, HEIC is basically just a single frame >of H.265.`

To be precise, it's a single H.265 Intra frame. In MPEG-based or MPEG-like >video encoding, there are [I]ntra, [B]i-directional, and [P]redictive frame >types. Intra frame is the complete image without dependecy of any previous >frame/data.

Another example: an Intra frame of an MPEG-1/2 video, is a JPEG image. On
the other hand, an MJPEG video is just an MPEG-1/2 video with nothing but I >frames.

(I'd never heard of HEIC until this thread.) Does this mean if you just
changed the extension to .jpg or .jpeg, it should open OK in viewer
prog.s?

I presume not, as IrfanView has the ability to say, when given a
filetype it doesn't know, (something like) "this is a JPEG with the
wrong extension - do you want to rename it?". [Though I'm not sure
whether the OP said he'd tried IV or not.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Do you want to be right, or friends?"
- a friend quoted by Vicky Ayech in UMRA, 2018-12-4

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"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote

| (I'd never heard of HEIC until this thread.) Does this mean if you just
| changed the extension to .jpg or .jpeg, it should open OK in viewer
| prog.s?
|
| I presume not, as IrfanView has the ability to say, when given a
| filetype it doesn't know, (something like) "this is a JPEG with the
| wrong extension - do you want to rename it?". [Though I'm not sure
| whether the OP said he'd tried IV or not.]

IV doesn't recognize it. And it's said to compress far more
than JPG. So it's not JPG. It seems to also vary more than
the poster on Reddit believed.

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"JJ" <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote

| https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/comments/778t43/heic_got_you_down_i_got_the_cure/
|

Very interesting. Thanks. The first problem is that of course
recent ffpmpeg won't run on XP or even on Win32. But I
happen to have v. 2.7 on hand. So I tried it. After CDing
to the folder I ran this:

ffmpeg -i pic1.heic -c:v tiff -pix_fmt rgb24 pic2.tiff

I got this error message:

ffmpeg -i pic1.heic -c:v tiff -pix_fmt rgb24 pic2.tiff

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 033902c0] moov atom not found
pic1.heic: Invalid data found when processing input...

'[mov' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file...

'pic1.heic:' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\libheif>pic1.heic: Invalid data found when processing
input


There may be other complications. From what I've been reading
it sounds like there are numerous variations. An HEIC can support
extra functionality, such as containing multiple images. There are
lots of patents involved. There are various versions. I'm not
clear on thsose details. Yet my image came from an iPhone.

It may be that my 2015 version of ffmpeg is too old for this.
I don't remember whether that's the last XP version of ffmpeg.

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"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| Found some HEIC samples, dropped them on "ImageMagic-Display"
| icon on my desktop, and they rendered. But, they look dreadful.
|
Old ImageMagick? It no longer supports XP. That seems
to be part of the problem: The advent of HEIF seems to
mostly come after people have dropped XP support in their
software. I think IM support for HEIF is fairly recent. Also,
there seem to be limitations. For instance, an HEIC is supposed
to support rotating (?), can include multiple images in order
to store a video, etc. It's not clear how full the support is
in various implementations.

| To vet a converter candidate, we'd need a HECI+JPG pair,
| so we can tell where the fault lies. Maybe the JPG version
| also looks bad.
|

The picture I have should be a clear image of a little girl.
I don't want to ask what sort of pictures you're storing. :)
I wonder about heif-convert/libheif. I haven't found any
reports of it not working, yet it just hangs for me on XP.
I also tried Pixillion image converter (which is where I got
the compiled libheif) and that does the same. If I load a
JPG it loads just fine. If I try the HEIC is just hangs at
loading.

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On 4/11/2022 9:21 AM, Mayayana wrote:

"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| Found some HEIC samples, dropped them on "ImageMagic-Display"
| icon on my desktop, and they rendered. But, they look dreadful.
|
Old ImageMagick? It no longer supports XP. That seems
to be part of the problem: The advent of HEIF seems to
mostly come after people have dropped XP support in their
software. I think IM support for HEIF is fairly recent. Also,
there seem to be limitations. For instance, an HEIC is supposed
to support rotating (?), can include multiple images in order
to store a video, etc. It's not clear how full the support is
in various implementations.

| To vet a converter candidate, we'd need a HECI+JPG pair,
| so we can tell where the fault lies. Maybe the JPG version
| also looks bad.
|

The picture I have should be a clear image of a little girl.
I don't want to ask what sort of pictures you're storing. :)
I wonder about heif-convert/libheif. I haven't found any
reports of it not working, yet it just hangs for me on XP.
I also tried Pixillion image converter (which is where I got
the compiled libheif) and that does the same. If I load a
JPG it loads just fine. If I try the HEIC is just hangs at
loading.

These were samples on a github page, for people who don't
own a device to make the files. Just something I could try
with the image tools sitting on my desktop. And the Imagemagick
icon was the only one that came close.

It's possible today, that Imagemagick now is only 64-bit.
It also includes things like OpenMP (I managed to freeze
a copy of Windows 10 when that got engaged). That has since
been fixed. There is a preference, to set OpenMP to "1 thread",
which neuters it.

Sometimes, even the code comes with samples.

https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/tree/master/examples

example.avif
example.heic <=== this one looks OK in Imagemagick! Scenery. No fluffy cats.

The picture is only 1280 across, and is 700KB, which means
not a lot of compression in there.

Paul

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On 4/11/2022 9:10 AM, Mayayana wrote:

"JJ" <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote

| https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/comments/778t43/heic_got_you_down_i_got_the_cure/
|

Very interesting. Thanks. The first problem is that of course
recent ffpmpeg won't run on XP or even on Win32. But I
happen to have v. 2.7 on hand. So I tried it. After CDing
to the folder I ran this:

ffmpeg -i pic1.heic -c:v tiff -pix_fmt rgb24 pic2.tiff

I got this error message:

ffmpeg -i pic1.heic -c:v tiff -pix_fmt rgb24 pic2.tiff

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 033902c0] moov atom not found
pic1.heic: Invalid data found when processing input...

'[mov' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file...

'pic1.heic:' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\libheif>pic1.heic: Invalid data found when processing input

There may be other complications. From what I've been reading
it sounds like there are numerous variations. An HEIC can support
extra functionality, such as containing multiple images. There are
lots of patents involved. There are various versions. I'm not
clear on thsose details. Yet my image came from an iPhone.

It may be that my 2015 version of ffmpeg is too old for this.
I don't remember whether that's the last XP version of ffmpeg.

You know about building FFMPEG, right ?

Some libraries are optional, and are at the discretion of
the builder. For example, something like ascii art support
is not likely to be compiled in by tech bros. You have
to watch ./configure like a hawk, to catch all the missing
devs and be careful to add them.

In Ubuntu, there are enough dev-libs, you can switch on
the dev-libs you want, and build it as you wish. That's
how I managed to add NVDEC and NVENC to it. The FOSS community
is forbidden by their religion to do that, but they will leave
a bottle of wine in the alley for those who like to drink :-)
All the materials I needed to do a build, were present. Just
took some hours of work. This is unlike the previous distro version,
where the materials were not ready-to-use, and I ran "into a
brick wall" before done.

If the one you downloaded is missing something, you can fix that.

Building FFMPEG is the kind of thing you do on rainy days :-)
It's about as much fun as sanding drywall.

WinXP FFMPEG goes up to at least 3.3.3, and the next rev after
that seemed to be 4.x and things went to hell for a while
after that. And WinXP was then off the table, and it eventually
settled down again. So if you're picking versions, you'd be
looking somewhere between 3.3.3 and 4.x as the last available.
On WinXP, I wasn't downloading those weekly - I would check
maybe once a year or two years for versions to use. That's
why my resolution on the numbers is poor.

Paul

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"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| You know about building FFMPEG, right ?
|
No. That falls under my new theme since I've semi
retired: I'm too old for that shit. I don't have patience
for OSS. No one ever explains the details. And I really don't
care to understand all this. I'll prbably never use HEIC.
I just want to open them on XP.

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"Shadow" <Sh@dow.br> wrote
|
| <https://rwijnsma.home.xs4all.nl/files/ffmpeg/>
|
Thanks. It seems to work OK, but it's giving me the
same error. I've tested 2 versions.

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On Mon, 11 Apr 2022 09:10:27 -0400, "Mayayana"
<mayayana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

<slight snip>

It may be that my 2015 version of ffmpeg is too old for this.
I don't remember whether that's the last XP version of ffmpeg.

I've been using these for years.
No malicious activity detected:

<https://rwijnsma.home.xs4all.nl/files/ffmpeg/>

Disclaimer: The latest build does not recognize HEIC as a
valid format.
HTH
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012
Google Fuchsia - 2021

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On 4/11/2022 4:33 PM, Paul wrote:

On 4/11/2022 9:10 AM, Mayayana wrote:

"JJ" <jj4public@gmail.com> wrote

|
https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/comments/778t43/heic_got_you_down_i_got_the_cure/
|

  Very interesting. Thanks. The first problem is that of course
recent ffpmpeg won't run on XP or even on Win32. But I
happen to have v. 2.7 on hand. So I tried it. After CDing
to the folder I ran this:

ffmpeg -i pic1.heic -c:v tiff -pix_fmt rgb24 pic2.tiff

I got this error message:

ffmpeg -i pic1.heic -c:v tiff -pix_fmt rgb24 pic2.tiff

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 033902c0] moov atom not found
pic1.heic: Invalid data found when processing input...

'[mov' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file...

'pic1.heic:' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\libheif>pic1.heic: Invalid data found when processing
input


  There may be other complications. From what I've been reading
it sounds like there are numerous variations. An HEIC can support
extra functionality, such as containing multiple images. There are
lots of patents involved. There are various versions. I'm not
clear on thsose details. Yet my image came from an iPhone.

   It may be that my 2015 version of ffmpeg is too old for this.
I don't remember whether that's the last XP version of ffmpeg.

https://repairit.wondershare.com/video-repair/moov-atom-not-found.html

# Don't to this! This is just a hint as to what this is.

https://images.wondershare.com/recoverit/article/12/ffmpeg-qtfaststart.jpg

That suggests the "moov atom" thing means FFMPEG has
gone down a rathole and thinks it is a movie.

*******

Which it is.

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000525.shtml

"HEIF [the part FFMPEG started to scan] is a media container format.

It is not an image or video encoder per se.

Hence, the quality of the visual media depends highly on the proper usage of encoders."

"Has subtype HEIF_HEIC, High Efficiency Image File Format, HEIC/HEIX brands"

There's two levels of decoding, container first, codec second,
and FFMPEG is not getting to the second level.

Based on comments I can find, this may have worked in FFMPEG
at one time, then got broken again. It's either that, or some
new iPhone is spitting out undigestable content.

I can find some lame web pages, suggesting the usage of
the $0.99 decoder to combat the inability for Windows 10
to deal with this in a native fashion.

What fun.

Paul

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"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| That suggests the "moov atom" thing means FFMPEG has
| gone down a rathole and thinks it is a movie.
|
| *******
|
| Which it is.

The plot thickens. I've been getting the sense that the
frmat is varied, ambiguous, and a decoder is expected to
handle a number of things, including the possibility of
multiple images. It's an image format that can contain
enough images to be a movie.

The strange thing is that I haven't found much mention
of people having trouble decoding it.

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On 4/11/2022 9:21 AM, Mayayana wrote:

"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| Found some HEIC samples, dropped them on "ImageMagic-Display"
| icon on my desktop, and they rendered. But, they look dreadful.
|
Old ImageMagick? It no longer supports XP.

https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/tree/master/examples

example.avif
example.heic <=== Opened in Imagemagick.
Opened in GIMP 2.10

In GIMP there were actually two frames in the file.
Imagemagick didn't indicate the details. I could also see
the frames in a hex editor, via "mdat" atom. You could tell
there was more than one image. Trying GIMP on it was a
purely random thing when something else I tried didn't work.

GIMP seems to use libheif, according to the source.

If you do find a WinXP solution, you'd want one that
shows you both frames in example.heic.

Paul

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"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/tree/master/examples
|
| example.avif
| example.heic <=== Opened in Imagemagick.
| Opened in GIMP 2.10
|
| In GIMP there were actually two frames in the file.
| Imagemagick didn't indicate the details. I could also see
| the frames in a hex editor, via "mdat" atom. You could tell
| there was more than one image. Trying GIMP on it was a
| purely random thing when something else I tried didn't work.
|
| GIMP seems to use libheif, according to the source.
|
| If you do find a WinXP solution, you'd want one that
| shows you both frames in example.heic.
|

I don't actually care about that. I don't foresee HEIC
being a thing except for iPhone photos. But this reminds
me of something. A few months ago I recall people having
a problem not sending videos when they wanted to send
photos. I got an attachment from someone that I think had
a MOV extension. She had taken a photo of a building. But
I got a video about 1 second long. Maybe that was a
converted HEIC? I didn't bother to look into it, as I didn't
care about the image and assumed it was her mistake
rather than an iPhne conversion issue.

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Chasys Draw IES fully supports HEIC on Windows XP as from version 5.28.01. And yes, it shows both frames in example.heic, as evidenced here ===> https://www.jpchacha.com/personal/media/example_heic_on_WinXP.png

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