A New Image File Format

I wanted to download an image file that was in avis file format. This was a format that I'd never seen before. I asked Bard for information about it. Here is what it came up with:

AVIF stands for AV1 Image File Format. It is a royalty-free image file format that uses the AV1 video codec for compression. AVIF files are typically smaller than JPEG or WebP files, while maintaining or even improving image quality.

AVIF files are supported by a growing number of image viewers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Preview. They can also be converted to other image formats, such as JPEG or PNG.

Here are some of the advantages of using AVIF files:

They are smaller than JPEG or WebP files, while maintaining or even improving image quality.

They are royalty-free, so they can be used without any licensing fees.

They are supported by a growing number of image viewers.

Here are some of the disadvantages of using AVIF files:

They are not as widely supported as JPEG or WebP files.

They may not be compatible with older image viewers.

Overall, AVIF files are a promising new image format that offers a number of advantages over JPEG and WebP files. As more image viewers support AVIF files, they are likely to become more widely used.

Here are some of the features of AVIF files:

Support for multiple color spaces, including HDR and SDR.

Lossless compression and lossy compression.

Transparency support.

Animation support.

AVIF files are a good choice for a variety of applications, including:

Online images, such as those used on websites or in email.

Digital images, such as those used in photography or graphics design.

Video thumbnails.

If you are looking for an image format that offers high image quality and small file sizes, AVIF is a good option to consider.

I downloaded the avis image and tried to upload it to this blog but the server rejected it. Thus one of the disadvantages (not as widely supported as JPEG or WebP files) becomes immediately apparent. In Linux Mint, the only image program that would open it was GIMP and I was able to use this to export the image as JPEG. See below:

So that was interesting. Here is some further information (source):

AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) is an encoding based on the open source AV1 video codec. AVIF is even newer—than WebP, only supported in Chrome and Opera since 2020, Firefox in 2021, and Safari in 2022. As with WebP, AVIF aims to address every conceivable use case for raster images on the web: GIF-like animation, PNG-like transparency, and improved perceptual quality at file sizes smaller than JPEG or WebP.

So far, AVIF shows promise. A testing framework developed by Netflix—a founding member of the Alliance for Open Media, the group responsible for the development of the AV1 codec—shows significant reductions in file sizes when compared to JPEG or WebP. Additional studies by Cloudinary and Chrome's codecs team have weighed it favorably against current encoding standards.