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Image MIME Reference
AVCI

AVC Image (HEIF Container)

image/avci
VS

Macromedia FreeHand Document

image/x-freehand
FreeHand

A complete technical comparison of AVC Image (HEIF Container) and Macromedia FreeHand Document — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature AVCI FreeHand
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No Yes
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes Yes
AVC Image (HEIF Container)
image/avci
Extension
.avci.hif
Container HEIF / ISOBMFF (ISO/IEC 14496-12)
Compression Lossy / Lossless
Algorithm
AVC (Advanced Video Coding / H.264)
Color Depth 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit
Developed by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) / ISO/IEC JTC 1
Released 2015
Magic Bytes
XX XX XX XX 66 74 79 70 61 76 63 69
Full AVCI reference →
Macromedia FreeHand Document
image/x-freehand
Extension
.fh.fh4.fh5.fh7.fh8.fh9.fh10.fh11.ft11
Container Proprietary Binary (Aldus Graphic Document)
Compression Uncompressed / Deflate (in later versions)
Algorithm
NoneDeflate (Optional in later versions)
Color Depth Vector Data (RGB/CMYK)
Developed by Altsys / Aldus / Macromedia
Released 1988
Magic Bytes
41 47 44 31 to 41 47 44 34
Full FreeHand reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser AVCI FreeHand
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
AVCI

AVCI Strengths

  • Shares the robust, flexible HEIF container architecture that allows for rich metadata, HDR, and depth maps.
  • Backed by the highly ubiquitous AVC (H.264) codec, which is widely supported in hardware decoding.
  • Supports rectangular cropping and rotation metadata without needing to re-encode the pixel data.
Limitations
  • No native support within web browsers for HTML rendering.
  • Inferior compression efficiency when compared to newer container formats like HEIC (HEVC) or AVIF (AV1).
  • Easily confused with HEIC and AVIF, which use the same base ISOBMFF container.
FreeHand

FreeHand Strengths

  • Historically one of the most powerful and intuitive vector editors on the market, praised for multi-page support long before Adobe Illustrator implemented it
  • Files are generally compact and self-contained
Limitations
  • Completely abandoned proprietary format; Adobe actively blocked native import in modern versions of Illustrator
  • No support in modern web browsers; must be converted to SVG
  • Versioning fragmentation means parsers must account for wildly different binary structures depending on the specific .fhX extension used

When to choose which format

AVCI
Use AVCI when…
  • Digital Photography
  • Camera Capture
  • Archival Storage
FreeHand
Use FreeHand when…
  • Legacy Graphic Design Portfolios
  • Historical Desktop Publishing Archival
  • Old Corporate Logo Vectors

More comparisons

AVCI vs ACES → FreeHand vs ACES → AVCI vs APNG → FreeHand vs APNG → AVCI vs AVCS → FreeHand vs AVCS → AVCI vs AVIF → FreeHand vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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