Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I wish I could use your script.
Can you try the following with mp4box on your avi:
mp4box -info input.avi
Note the Track ID for the HEVC video.
Now run the following, wherein 1 should be your video Track ID:
mp4box -raw 1 input.avi;
mp4box -add input_track1.hvc output.mp4
 
I just did some test with my 7+ (on ios11) and my girlfriend's iPhone SE (latest stable iOS 10)

The video I filmed was in HEVC. When I sent it to her phone with AirDrop, there was a small animation on the AirDrop icon before being sent, it was converting. The video she got on her phone was in h.264 format, I can't airplay it on my ATV 4, but I haven't updated it yet. She can AirPlay the converted file.

I checked the video format by importing my original video and importing the same video I sent to her phone.

HEVC is half the size for the same quality! :)

Edit: updated with all info.

Would you Kindly let me know if the videos the iPhone 7 makes in HEVC are 8bit or 10bit?
 
If someone is aware of a transcode utility for Mac OS that will convert H.265 AVI to H.264 mp4, I'd sure like to know about it.
You should be able to use @lukfunk solution (you may need to change -raw to -aviraw), but another option is to use a newer version of ffmpeg
Code:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c copy -map 0 output.mp4
and then use mp4box to remix it into a proper hvc1 until ffmpeg are able to do it by itself.

I am curious why you get it into avi format in the first place, it is a format which should go away.
 
Everything gets converted to H264/JPEG when exported anywhere. H265/HEIF is used SOLELY to save space on the original device.

This bothers me; I wish the better compression were used to improve quality rather than save space.

Space is cheap. We should be shooting for quality.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jb-net
Basically from now on a 64GB A10 device should be considered more like a 100GB device because pics and vids in the camera roll are half the size compared to A9/A8 devices.

Stuff to consider when shopping for iDevices.

Good idea.

Or you could just take photos/videos off the device every once in a while. :D

Your phone is not supposed to be permanent storage for every photo you've ever taken...

Of course I'm the type of person who is meticulous with file management on desktop computers... with external hard drives and various backups. So needless to say I'm fine with emptying my phone every so often.

The average person can't/won't do that. So there's gotta be a better solution.

You can't keep buying bigger and bigger phones to hold your lifetime of photos.

;)
 
Last edited:
Good idea.

Or you could just take photos/videos off the device every once in a while. :D

Your phone is not supposed to be permanent storage for every photo you've ever taken...

Of course I'm the type of person who is meticulous with file management on desktop computers... with external hard drives and various backups. So needless to say I'm fine with emptying my phone every so often.

The average person can't/won't do that. So there's gotta be a better solution.

You can't keep buying bigger and bigger phones to hold your lifetime of photos.

;)

What's a desktop computer?
What's a computer?
What's an external drive?
Never heard of such devices.

Backups? I know of iCloud backups, the safest form of daily backup.

Offloading? I know about iCloud Photo Library and (new in iOS11) automatic deleting apps while keeping user data.



...you get the idea ;)
It's no longer possible to assume there's a "hub" desktop computer in the equation.

Anyway, whichever user habits are involved, having a slimmer camera roll (thanks to heif/hevc) pushes further away the moment of the inevitable offloading to a pc or a cloud.
 
It's no longer possible to assume there's a "hub" desktop computer in the equation.

No doubt.

But if you do have a computer... it's a great way to free up space on your phone. You shouldn't be carrying 30GB+ of photos and videos around in your pocket forever. :)

Anyway, whichever user habits are involved, having a slimmer camera roll (thanks to heif/hevc) pushes further away the moment of the inevitable offloading to a pc or a cloud.

Slimmer camera roll will help... but the problem is still the same.

If you take a dozen photos every day... it WILL take up space.

We've had iCloud Photo Library for a couple years now... with the ability to offload full-size photos to the cloud and only save thumbnails on the device. That's great.

But apparently it's not well known and/or people don't want to spend extra money on iCloud storage.

So I still hear people say "my phone is full" quite often.
 
You shouldn't be carrying 30GB+ of photos and videos around in your pocket forever. :)

Why not? I've got a 128GB phone, so I have the space for all those. And I absolutely LOVE the idea that I have access to any photo at any time. Granted, I don't have the full version downloaded on 99.9% of them. The full versions on in the cloud and on my Mac.

I should also mention, I'm quite anal about tagging stuff. So it's not just a giant lump of media sitting on my device, it's actually searchable and such. If it was nothing more than a giant lump of media, I can imagine it might be too much to browse through to find stuff. But I'm smarter than that. It typically takes only seconds to find the photo I'm interested in.

Just to add some context, my "Photos & Camera" is currently using 9.35GB (keep in mind I only have thumbnails downloaded for most of these) on my phone. That's 372 videos and 27,729 photos.

Edit: I just read the second part of your post. I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I do use iCloud and even pay extra for that feature. So I don't think you were referring to people like me with your comment. But I said it, so I'll let it stand.
 
Why not? I've got a 128GB phone, so I have the space for all those. And I absolutely LOVE the idea that I have access to any photo at any time. Granted, I don't have the full version downloaded on 99.9% of them. The full versions on in the cloud and on my Mac.

I should also mention, I'm quite anal about tagging stuff. So it's not just a giant lump of media sitting on my device, it's actually searchable and such. If it was nothing more than a giant lump of media, I can imagine it might be too much to browse through to find stuff. But I'm smarter than that. It typically takes only seconds to find the photo I'm interested in.

Just to add some context, my "Photos & Camera" is currently using 9.35GB (keep in mind I only have thumbnails downloaded for most of these) on my phone. That's 372 videos and 27,729 photos.

Edit: I just read the second part of your post. I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I do use iCloud and even pay extra for that feature. So I don't think you were referring to people like me with your comment. But I said it, so I'll let it stand.

My comments were based on hearing these scenarios from people:

"My phone is full"

and

"I have every photo I've ever taken on my phone... on my phone..."

It all started with someone's comment about the smaller photo and video sizes... and my response was "that's great... but you'll fill up your phone eventually."

People don't know what to DO with their photos. So they leave them on the phone. They take a dozen photos every day and wonder why their phones fill up. And they have no alternative storage elsewhere.

You and I take care of that for ourselves. But "people" don't.

Yes... smaller file sizes and larger-capacity phones will help. But the issue is still there.

Like I said in my first comment.... your phone is not supposed to be permanent storage for every photo you've ever taken.

But people treat it like that because they don't know better.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MEJHarrison
What's a desktop computer?
What's a computer?
What's an external drive?
Never heard of such devices.

Backups? I know of iCloud backups, the safest form of daily backup.

Offloading? I know about iCloud Photo Library and (new in iOS11) automatic deleting apps while keeping user data.



...you get the idea ;)
It's no longer possible to assume there's a "hub" desktop computer in the equation.

Anyway, whichever user habits are involved, having a slimmer camera roll (thanks to heif/hevc) pushes further away the moment of the inevitable offloading to a pc or a cloud.

It's a little scary how many people put total and complete trust in iCloud to keep their data safe.

I have a hard time with the idea of my precious data, especially photos, being stored in only one location. I guess if you don't have a computer, iCloud becomes the main and primary option, but wow. For me it would feel like driving with no seat belt. I love the safe feeling of having multiple backups of everything.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Michael Scrip
do you really believe iCloud saves the data only in one location?
all cloud services have multiple backups of the entire storage. It's safer there than anywhere on your private hard drives
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: magicMac
It's a little scary how many people put total and complete trust in iCloud to keep their data safe.

I have a hard time with the idea of my precious data, especially photos, being stored in only one location. I guess if you don't have a computer, iCloud becomes the main and primary option, but wow. For me it would feel like driving with no seat belt. I love the safe feeling of having multiple backups of everything.

Really now?

How many copies of your data do you have? :p

I have 3 copies of all my data. One on Phone/Latop, one on my NAS & the other on the raid drive on my NAS and that still worries me. Apple likely has 10 times more redundancy than even most tech people.
 
Really now?

How many copies of your data do you have? :p

I have 3 copies of all my data. One on Phone/Latop, one on my NAS & the other on the raid drive on my NAS and that still worries me. Apple likely has 10 times more redundancy than even most tech people.

For my photo library, I have the whole thing on both of my Macs, time machine, my home file server and an off site backup location.

As for iCloud redundancy being "10 times", how do you KNOW that? Apple doesn't publish their data warehousing practices. There's no way to know for sure how they take care of your data. So I treat iCloud as being a single copy, like I would a single hard drive with the data that can fail any time.
 
I made a small rest-api that converts from jpeg to heic using curl. It's written in golang and the code is available at https://github.com/kometen/http_post. The server is hosted on digital ocean. So for those of you who like the command line you can try a few images. The conversion itself takes a minute or two, the server then issues a http redirect 303 and curl GET's the converted file. The readme have an example on the curl-syntax.
 
Last edited:
Very interesting thread. Could somebody please upload a short video shot with iPhone7(Plus) in HEVC and 4k somewhere? Thanks!
 
Last edited:
How do you actually get iOS 11 to record in HEVC? I put the GM on a 10.5 iPad and the mp4 file is produces is always x264.
 
I just did some test with my 7+ (on ios11) and my girlfriend's iPhone SE (latest stable iOS 10)

The video I filmed was in HEVC. When I sent it to her phone with AirDrop, there was a small animation on the AirDrop icon before being sent, it was converting. The video she got on her phone was in h.264 format, I can't airplay it on my ATV 4, but I haven't updated it yet. She can AirPlay the converted file.

I checked the video format by importing my original video and importing the same video I sent to her phone.

HEVC is half the size for the same quality! :)

Edit: updated with all info.

This guy
 
I wouldn't worry too much about Intels chips, they are more than capable to decode 4k 10bit in realtime (Skylake+)...
I wish Apple had colluded with Google to adopt VP9 or some open format. I especially hate H265 and Dolby Vision. This H265 video format is plain bag of hurt. Nothing is clear which device/TV supports which Profile. Whether it suports 8 bit or 10 bit. What are those precise conditions needed so that my TV will display the much coveted HDR logo while playing a 4K movie. Whether my CPU has DRM to enable playback. Whether to bitstream or let TV do the decoding and pass PCM sound go my receiver. Dolby Atmos and DTX-X, DTS-HDMA..... These formats have also caused too much grief and confusion to consumers. On top of it, manufacturers like LG release half arsed products like LG OLED6 which don’t support Atmos and E-AC3. There is also a question whether Apple will allow atmos/hdma audio passthrough with this 4K Apple TV.

Only questions and confusion. What a sorry state to be in as a multimedia enthusiast!
 
...products like LG OLED6 which don’t support Atmos...

Explain to me how a TV with it’s ultra cheap integrated stereo speakers would benefit from supporting a multi channel/multi heights/multi directional sound format?

Unless you have a good home cinema with all of the above speaker configuration, there is no use for atmos at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jhfenton
Explain to me how a TV with it’s ultra cheap integrated stereo speakers would benefit from supporting a multi channel/multi heights/multi directional sound format?

Unless you have a good home cinema with all of the above speaker configuration, there is no use for atmos at all.
Well, who expects Atmos sound from punny little TV speakers. But LG is being arrogant and refuses to even allow passthrough of Atmos audio to our Atmos enabled Denon/Onkyo receivers through HDMI-ARC (Audio Return Channel).
So if your mkv or mp4 file has Atmos audio stream, it will just not work via USB or Network on LG OLED6 TVs. There is also a petition on change.org. LG's response was to buy their OLED7 series which fully supports Atmos lol.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Brenster
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.