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Image MIME Reference
AVCI

AVC Image (HEIF Container)

image/avci
VS

High Efficiency Image File Format

image/heif
HEIF

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

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature AVCI HEIF
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No Yes
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes Yes
EXIF Metadata Yes Yes
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 →
High Efficiency Image File Format
image/heif
Extension
.heif.hif
Container HEIF / ISOBMFF (ISO/IEC 14496-12)
Compression Lossy / Lossless
Algorithm
Codec Agnostic (HEVC, AVC, JPEG, AV1)
Color Depth 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit, 16-bit
Developed by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
Released 2015
Magic Bytes
XX XX XX XX 66 74 79 70 6D 69 66 31
Full HEIF reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser AVCI HEIF
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.
HEIF

HEIF Strengths

  • Highly flexible container that can store image bursts, animations, focal stacks, and stereo 3D images in one file
  • Natively supports depth maps and alpha channels, making it perfect for computational photography
  • When paired with modern codecs like HEVC or AV1, it provides massive storage savings over legacy formats like JPEG
Limitations
  • Codec agnosticism makes broad software decoding difficult, as the container might hold proprietary or unsupported codecs
  • Zero cross-platform web browser support, requiring conversion for online publishing
  • Often confused with the more specific 'image/heic' and 'image/avif' MIME types

When to choose which format

AVCI
Use AVCI when…
  • Digital Photography
  • Camera Capture
  • Archival Storage
HEIF
Use HEIF when…
  • Digital Photography
  • Camera Capture
  • Image Archiving
  • Multi-image composites

More comparisons

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