The High Efficiency Image File Format Standard [Standards in a Nutshell]

The High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a standard developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) for the storage of images and image sequences. The standard facilitates file encapsulation of data coded according to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. The compression performance of HEVC is superior to any alternative image or image sequence coding format. HEIF includes a rich set of features building on top of the widely used ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF), making HEIF superior feature-wise compared to other image file formats. This article provides an overview of the performance, features, and design of HEIF.