Is it not possible to view iPhones photos on Windows without paying?

[Filingo]

I was sent some photos from iPhone which have HEIC extension. Apparently I can't view them because I need to buy an extension from the Microsoft Store to watch that?

 

VLC also shows black screen

 

What the f***?

[ZetZet]

https://github.com/prsyahmi/wic_heic/releases/ No need to buy anything. 

[Kilrah]

Irfanview can read them, although it might be because I do have the extension (often comes bundled with prebuilts too).

EDIT: Seems so ftom the readme of the above lib.

 

But yeah, Apple likes using otherwise uncommon proprietary formats that require licensing.

[dilpickle]

https://www.howtogeek.com/345504/how-to-open-heic-files-on-windows-or-convert-them-to-jpeg/

https://www.howtogeek.com/680690/how-to-install-free-hevc-codecs-on-windows-10-for-h.265-video/

[dilpickle]

8 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

But yeah, Apple likes using otherwise uncommon proprietary formats that require licensing.

HEIC is part of the MPEG standard. Android uses it too. Microsoft are the ones being a bitch and wanting to charge for it.

[mariushm]

HEIC is derived from the HEVC (h265) video compression standard, which requires users to pay royalties for viewing movies encoded with this codec, and for producers of such pictures and/or movies to also pay a license.

Apple is part of the group that has patents and gets paid by software manufacturers and hardware device manufacturers which want to show HEIC pictures or HEVC movies and they're big enough to afford paying a few millions a year for the royalties to themselves and other companies.

Microsoft doesn't want to pay the license cost for each Windows installation, because it would add maybe half a dollar or a dollar to each Windows cost.

 

So they make you pay for the codec ... and that codec can be used in various programs to decode the format. It's like when in the past you installed Xvid codec to watch movies you downloaded from Kazaa or whatever.

 

You can probably use ImageMagick to convert the HEIC pictures to PNG or JPEG-XL , and then everyone would be able to watch them ... well JPEG-XL is new format, but image viewers support it as it doesn't require royalties and licenses.

[Filingo]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

HEIC is derived from the HEVC (h265) video compression standard, which requires users to pay royalties for viewing movies encoded with this codec, and for producers of such pictures and/or movies to also pay a license.

Apple is part of the group that has patents and gets paid by software manufacturers and hardware device manufacturers which want to show HEIC pictures or HEVC movies and they're big enough to afford paying a few millions a year for the royalties to themselves and other companies.

Microsoft doesn't want to pay the license cost for each Windows installation, because it would add maybe half a dollar or a dollar to each Windows cost.

 

So they make you pay for the codec ... and that codec can be used in various programs to decode the format. It's like when in the past you installed Xvid codec to watch movies you downloaded from Kazaa or whatever.

 

You can probably use ImageMagick to convert the HEIC pictures to PNG or JPEG-XL , and then everyone would be able to watch them ... well JPEG-XL is new format, but image viewers support it as it doesn't require royalties and licenses.

As if paying $100+ for a Windows (OEM even) license is not enough for them to include that $0.5 codec

 

1 hour ago, Diana Queen said:

Well, there are programs in Google that convert images from one format to another. Although it's strange, I have an iPhone 13 pro max, my boyfriend has One plus and I send him a photo without problems..

How do you send? via WhatsApp? Probably Android also has that codec because many users send from iPhones to Android and vice versa and that really requires people to have that codec there as opposed to Windows?

[GoodBytes]

18 hours ago, Filingo said:

As if paying $100+ for a Windows (OEM even) license is not enough for them to include that $0.5 codec

It's 1$! Ask your friend for one if you can't buy it.

Buy it once, and it is good for 10 simultaneous systems and forever on any future systems using the same account.

[dilpickle]

19 hours ago, Filingo said:

As if paying $100+ for a Windows (OEM even) license is not enough for them to include that $0.5 codec

 

How do you send? via WhatsApp? Probably Android also has that codec because many users send from iPhones to Android and vice versa and that really requires people to have that codec there as opposed to Windows?

Did you even read the links I posted. There is a free version you can download from the M$ store. I just got it myself and it works. 

[Filingo]

2 hours ago, dilpickle said:

Did you even read the links I posted. There is a free version you can download from the M$ store. I just got it myself and it works. 

Whattttt? From some reason the only comments I read was @mariushm and @Diana Queen comments. Don't know how I missed all the others  going to try now, thank you!

 

 

  

On 11/2/2022 at 6:08 PM, ZetZet said:

https://github.com/prsyahmi/wic_heic/releases/ No need to buy anything. 

 

Ty!