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Image MIME Reference
HEIC

High Efficiency Image Container

image/heic
VS

Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)

image/x-tga
TGA

A complete technical comparison of High Efficiency Image Container and Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias) — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

HEIC wins on browser support

Feature Support

Feature HEIC TGA
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support Yes ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
High Efficiency Image Container
image/heic
Extension
.heic
Container HEIF / ISOBMFF
Compression Lossy / Lossless
Algorithm
HEVC (H.265)
Color Depth 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit, 16-bit
Developed by MPEG (Standard) / Apple (Adoption)
Released 2017
Magic Bytes
XX XX XX XX 66 74 79 70 68 65 69 63
Full HEIC reference →
Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)
image/x-tga
Extension
.tga.icb.vda.vst
Container Truevision TGA Footer/Header
Compression Uncompressed / Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
Algorithm
NoneRLE
Color Depth 8-bit (Grayscale or Indexed), 16-bit (High Color), 24-bit (True Color), 32-bit (True Color with Alpha Channel)
Developed by Truevision Inc.
Released 1984
Magic Bytes
54 52 55 45 56 49 53 49 4F 4E 2D 58 46 49 4C 45 2E 00 (At the end of the file)
Full TGA reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser HEIC TGA
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✓ 11+
 ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
HEIC

HEIC Strengths

  • Exceptional compression efficiency — stores images at roughly half the file size of JPEG with equal or better visual quality
  • Natively supports modern photography features like depth maps, 16-bit color, HDR, and alpha channel transparency
  • Can store image bursts, focal stacks, and animations (Live Photos) within a single file
Limitations
  • Heavily encumbered by software patents, leading to very poor adoption outside the Apple ecosystem
  • Not supported by standard web browsers (except Safari), requiring server-side or client-side conversion for web delivery
  • Windows requires downloading a separate (often paid) extension from the Microsoft Store to view natively
TGA

TGA Strengths

  • Incredibly simple byte layout allows developers to write custom loaders and exporters in a few dozen lines of code, bypassing the need for heavy external libraries
  • Native support for 8-bit alpha channels ensures flawless transparency masking for real-time 3D rendering
  • Fast, predictable RLE decoding requires almost no CPU overhead compared to DEFLATE (PNG) or DCT (JPEG)
Limitations
  • RLE compression is relatively weak by modern standards, resulting in large file sizes
  • Lacks a standard magic byte header at the beginning of the file, making file-sniffing unreliable for older v1.0 files
  • Zero support in web browsers; must be converted to PNG or WebP for web delivery

When to choose which format

HEIC
Use HEIC when…
  • iOS / iPhone Photography
  • macOS Ecosystem
  • High-Quality Image Archiving
TGA
Use TGA when…
  • Video Game 3D Textures and Materials
  • 3D Rendering and Animation Sequences
  • Legacy Video Production Workflows

More comparisons

HEIC vs ACES → TGA vs ACES → HEIC vs APNG → TGA vs APNG → HEIC vs AVCI → TGA vs AVCI → HEIC vs AVCS → TGA vs AVCS → HEIC vs AVIF → TGA vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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