Image MIME Reference
AVCI
AVC Image (HEIF Container)
image/avci
VS
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) Graphic
image/vnd.dece.graphic
DECE-Graphic
A complete technical comparison of AVC Image (HEIF Container) and Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) Graphic — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.
Equal browser support
Feature Support
| Feature | AVCI | DECE-Graphic |
|---|---|---|
| Transparency (Alpha) | Yes | Yes |
| Animation Support | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| Progressive Loading | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| HDR Support | Yes | ✕ No |
| EXIF Metadata | Yes | ✕ No |
| ICC Color Profile | Yes | ✕ No |
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
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) Graphic
image/vnd.dece.graphic
Extension
.jpg.png.uvi
Container
Standard JPEG/PNG within DECE CFF structures
Compression
Lossy (JPEG) / Lossless (PNG)
Algorithm
DCT (JPEG)DEFLATE (PNG)
Color Depth
8-bit (RGB), 24-bit (RGB)
Developed by
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) LLC
Released
2011
Magic Bytes
FF D8 FF (If JPEG) / 89 50 4E 47 (If PNG)
Browser Support Comparison
| Browser | AVCI | DECE-Graphic |
|---|---|---|
Chrome
|
✕ | ✕ |
Firefox
|
✕ | ✕ |
Safari
|
✕ | ✕ |
Edge
|
✕ | ✕ |
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.
DECE-Graphic
DECE-Graphic Strengths
- Allowed the UltraViolet DRM ecosystem to easily distinguish structural UI/cover graphic assets from actual encrypted video tracks in a Common File Format container
Limitations
- Completely obsolete since the 2019 shutdown of UltraViolet
- Unnecessary abstraction, as the underlying files were just standard JPEGs or PNGs
- Causes modern strict MIME-type validators to fail if they rely on the Content-Type header
When to choose which format
AVCI
Use AVCI when…
- Digital Photography
- Camera Capture
- Archival Storage
DECE-Graphic
Use DECE-Graphic when…
- UltraViolet Movie Cover Art
- Common File Format (CFF) Asset Manifests
- Legacy DRM Ecosystems