XPost: misc.phone.mobile.iphone, rec.photo.digital   
   From: mariasophia@comprehension.com   
      
   Frank Slootweg wrote:   
   >> However, when stepping through the files copied from the iPad to the   
   >> Windows PC, Irfanview would no play the MOV files using default settings.   
   >   
   > [Your procedure to get IrfanView to play your iPad's .MOV videos.]   
   >   
   >   Just an idea: Have you checked if your iPad can generate non-HEVC   
   > (MP4?) .MOV videos?   
   >   
   >   For pictures, iDevices can generate .JPEG images, instead of .HEIC   
   > ones (AFAICT, you already use that function).   
      
   Hi Frank,   
      
   Thanks for that advice, as many of us daily work with iOS, Android &   
   Windows interchangeably, where those who are only on one platform never get   
   to see what we see by constantly trying to interoperate between them.   
      
   Long ago, as you may recall, Paul and I discussed the evils of HEIC, which   
   caught me by surprise when I innocently set "best format" in my camera app.   
      
   So, yes, you are correct, I'm well aware devices can NOT write to HEIC.   
      
   However, we may need clarify the technical details a bit because a few   
   different concepts are apparently getting mixed together, especially since   
   Live Photos appears to behave differently from normal iOS video recordings.   
      
   While iOS does allow switching the codec for standard video (H.264 vs.   
   HEVC), apparently that interoperability setting is not used for the short   
   motion clip embedded in a Live Photo. For Live Photos, Apple always appears   
   to encode the video portion as HEVC inside a MOV container, and there is no   
   user setting I could find that forces H.264 for that specific stream. Even   
   with "Most Compatible" enabled, Live Photos still produced HEVC video.   
      
   So in this particular case, the helpful idea of generating non-HEVC MOV   
   files does not apply as far as I can tell of how Apple designed it to do.   
      
   The playback issue I described was not caused by the capture format anyway.   
      
   IrfanView 32-bit was forcing the old QuickTime plugin for MOV playback, and   
   since QUICKTIME.DLL no longer exists on my Windows PC, playback failed   
   immediately. IrfanView never fell back to DirectShow or LAV Filters.   
      
   Once I disabled the QuickTime option to let IrfanView use DirectShow, and   
   once a modern DirectShow codec pack was installed (LAV Video, LAV Audio,   
   LAV Splitter), the iPad MOV files played normally, as they should play.   
      
   That interoperability tweak was entirely on the Windows side.   
      
   So the overall iPad-to-PC USB interoperability landscape is (AFAICT)...   
    a. Apple's iPadOS Live Photos always use HEVC video   
    b. Windows Explorer needs a HEVC-capable thumbnail provider   
    c. Icaros freeware solved that problem, preserving privacy   
    d. IrfanView needs DirectShow + modern codecs (LAV solved that)   
      
   As far as I can tell so far, none of this can be fixed on the iOS side.   
   As Keith mentioned early on in this thread, Apple products have never   
   worked in the real world, which is Apple's fundamental strategy.   
      
       
    If Apple makes working in the real world hard enough, those people who   
    aren't as clever as we are, will never be able to inter operate well.   
      
    And it's *those people* who naturally buy *only* Apple products.   
    Because only then does Apple's iOS ecosystem ever really "just work".   
       
      
   Thanks for your purposefully helpful suggestion, where, as far as I can   
   tell, the iPad is behaving as Apple expected it to, much like when Apple   
   told me the inherent insecurity of their WPS database is 'as designed'.   
      
   ,The interoperability issues were on the Windows/IrfanView side, not the   
   capture side, although it would be nice of the Live Photo had choices.   
   --   
   I'm never afraid to say what I don't know or what I do know as my ego isn't   
   tied to pretending otherwise, unlike most people, who are always afraid.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)