Why airdrop converting videos before send to another device?

By the way I have a workaround for this converting issue. It won't help with videos already created - but any new videos created won't need the converting step.

Here's what you do:

Settings → Camera → Formats

Then select "Most Compatible"

It's clear that the iPhone is saving in HEVC, but since Apple has updated iMovie to support HEVC on High Sierra, why then are we not given the option to AIRDROP HEVC formatted videos to our High Sierra Mac? Why does iOS force us to convert to H.264 instead of using immediately sending the HEVC file for AIRDROP videos? Or is it actually possible for us to export HEVC via AIRDROP using an special setting in iOS? Surely there must be a way to export HEVC to the Mac if the user wants that?

I have the same issue. Took videos with my iPhone 8 Plus and wanted to send them to my Sierra OS Macbook Pro through AirDrop. I push the send button and my phone started converting the videos. Does this have to do with the new file system? IOS 11 has a new file system but I have not upgraded my Macbook Pro to High Sierra which is also suppose to support the new file system for movie files.

As an alternative, I used the same process to send the videos to my computer by using the Files Folder on my iPhone. First my phone prepared the videos and uploaded them to my dropbox. There was no converting going on.

I have the same issue. The most aggravating part about this lame"converting" issue - is that my iPhone is constantly saving its battery by turning the screen dark during the converting/transfer process. When it does this the file transfer says "failed". Then I have to restart the entire process again. So, the only way to transfer videos out of this phone is to constantly tap the screen to prevent the iPhone from sleeping (or going dark). So, if that transfer takes 10 or 15 minutes you MUST be staring at your phone that ENTIRE time and tapping the darn screen just to move a video. It wasn't like this before - it just worked easily before. Now, it's an utter hassle and no one knows why. You'd think something like this (software bug or usecase) would be extremely obvious and therefore preventable. Whatever.

From the iPhone User Guide:

(iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus) To save space, iPhone captures photos and videos in new high-efficiency formats called HEIF and HEVC automatically. To change image and video format settings, go to Settings > Camera > Formats, then choose either High Efficiency (saves more space) or Most Compatible.

The new formats that Apple is using take about half the space that the old formats used and take better pictures. This article gives good information about the new format. https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/what-is-heic-3660408/

If you send photos and videos often, then selecting the Most Compatible option is probably the best but you will be trading off in that they will take up more space and won't be as high quality. If you mainly take pictures for your enjoyment and typically only view them on your iPhone, leave them on the new High Efficiency setting. Of course you can use the HEIF and HEVC formats and send them to people but there will be a delay on sending them so that they can be converted.

Due to my company email on my iPhone 7, it has set rules to lock the iPhone after no physical activity. So I have to keep hitting the screen so it won't go to sleep. And you can't leave the photos apps as it will stop the converting process. It would be nice if this was something that could happen in the background too.

My iPhone 7 running iOS 11 was taking forever to convert a 25 minute video I recorded in 1080p60fps. I had to keep tapping on the screen the entire time to ensure no errors during the conversion. Then 25% into the conversion I got an error message that say my iPhone was out of storage! But that's when the magic began. Suddenly AirDrop starting to send my video to my 5K iMac! Poof, it was there in my Downloads folder! And only 1.9GB in size. I did a GET INFO on it and found it is encoded using "hvc1, AAC, mebx."

I am now using HandBrake to convert the video file to H.264 since I don't have High Sierra on this particular 5k Mac to natively take advantage of the HVEC format.

So the trick to getting HVEC from your iPhone to your Mac via AIRDROP seems to be to simply "run out of storage."

For iPhone X, if you make video in 4K iPhone compress the video to 1080p before sending it to Airdrop or any other social media . If you have 1080p video that should be sent instantly.

If you want 4K video to be transfer, I think connecting it through cable and import video in Photos app.

Hi. Please don't post duplicates. It only adds confusion. You can just reply to your own thread to add more info.

How does this answer the question? It doesn't.

Hi Ross415. Thanks for your kind advice.

The new formats are only available on the iPhone 7 and newer.