Automatic conversion to HEVC in iCloud Photos?

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Level 1

8 points

Automatic conversion to HEVC in iCloud Photos?

I recorded a series of videos on my iPhone 7 about six months ago. I know for a fact that all of them were recorded in mov h264 files - I imported half of them right away to Photos on my MacBook and exported unmodified originals to an external drive and they look like this:

Now, about six months later, I am trying to download originals from my iCloud and they either download as HEVC or extremely compressed mp4.

What happened to the actual, original h264 mov files? Were they converted to HEVC when they were uploaded to iCloud Photos? Can I recover actual lossless* h264 originals??

By lossless I do not necessarily mean without compression, just the actual large and older files as they were recorded on my phone.

iPhone 7, iOS 12

Posted on May 29, 2019 8:17 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

LACAllen

Level 8

43,584 points

May 30, 2019 5:05 AM in response to deeprimepl

trying to download originals from my iCloud and they either download as HEVC or extremely compressed mp4.

How are you doing this?

When you export from iCloud, there are 2 options...

You must long press on the download icon to see the options.

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Answer 2

deeprimepl Author

Level 1

8 points

May 30, 2019 11:33 PM in response to LACAllen

Yes, I tired both of these options - the first one results in HEVC files, the second in small and very much compressed mp4 files. The former are NOT in the format they were recorded in and the latter are compatible with my software but useless due to compression.

I managed to convert the HEVC files into something useful so this is not the actual issue.

My issue is with the “original as captured OR IMPORTED” clause. Am I going crazy or have the original h264 movs been automatically replaced with “better” HEVC ones when they landed in iCloud Photos? I’m just curious because this seems like a very Apple-y thing to do.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,467 points

May 31, 2019 4:58 AM in response to deeprimepl

I just tested again - all my H.264 videos are downloading as H.264, when I download the originals from www.icloud.com. It is still working for me.

What have been the settings on your iPhone, when you downloaded the videos from the iPhone?

The iPhone may have recorded the video as HEVC in the High Efficiency format, but if the setting on the iPhone have been set to "Most Compatible" in the "Download to PC" section, the video may have been converted to H.264, when you downloaded it to your Mac. This way you may already have had the HEVC version on your iPhone, when you enabled iCloud Photos: Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support (see the last paragraph: "Importing ... via USB").

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Automatic conversion to HEVC in iCloud Photos?

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