Having a video with Alpha format that works well at bit rates low enough for distribution opens up many opportunities. Encoding is supported on all of those devices and computers that have an HEVC encoder. Playback of HEVC video with Alpha is supported in iOS 13, tvOS 13 and macOS Catalina on all supported devices and computers. And so we said let's use that advanced loosy compression technology to support Alpha channels in video files as well. HEIF sequences also support Alpha channels.įor some time we've recognized the need for a lower bitrate way to include Alpha in motion video. In fact, this year we are adding support for HEIF sequences, which lets you have multiple images in a single file. HEIF also lets you include an Alpha channel in image files. In 2017, Apple introduced support for the HEIF image file format, which lets us take advantage of the advanced lossy compression technologies in HEVC to compress still images. The formats used in professional video workflows like Apple ProRes 4444 are very high data rate and not appropriate for delivery. It has been a professional video workflow tool. So Alpha and transparency are common and used all over the web principally by still image formats like PNG.Īlpha in video has been less common. This allows us to have an image that has a complex, non-rectangular shape but looks natural when composited against many different backgrounds. When there's an Alpha channel in an image file, every pixel in the image gets opacity along with its color.

Alpha channels are ubiquitous in image files, in our apps and on the web. You're probably familiar with Alpha channels in image files today.

My name is Shiva Sundar, and I'm extremely excited to talk about HEVC Video with Alpha.

Apple video file suppott