lightroom not importing video data for all live photos

Report · Nov 11, 2019

I've noticed that with Lightroom Classic 9 on Mac and iPhone 11 Pro, most live photos are being imported as HEIC only and not HEIC+mov. That is, the "live" video portion is missing.

It seems that the mov video files will only be present if I edit the image first on the phone, then I get the original HEIC, the MOV, and possibly the IMG_S*.* and IMG_E*.* edited versions. If I don't edit, then only the original image and not its associated video is imported.

The live photo support has always been a little flaky, but I get the impression that this problem is new, either with the new Lightroom or new iOS. Previously I would get both HEIC and MOV whenever I import a live photo from the iPhone.

Report · Nov 11, 2019

Hi there,

Sorry that Lightroom is not importing HEIC and MOV whenever you import a live photo from the iPhone.

Could you please try the following steps?:

On the device (iPhone or iPad) that you are using to capture the HEIC/HEVC media, go to Settings > Camera.

Tap Formats.
Tap Most Compatible. This setting is available only on devices that can capture media in HEIF or HEVC format.
All new photos and videos now use JPEG or H.264 format. To return to using the space-saving HEIF and HEVC formats, choose High Efficiency.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Akash

Report · Nov 12, 2019

I did some tests and your workaround works. It seems that Lightroom Classic is not properly supporting the HEVC format? Can this be fixed in a future version of Lightroom? I don't want to keep my phone in the "most compatible" mode as high efficiency is clearly a more advanced format.

Report · Nov 13, 2019

Thanks for the update. Good to know that the workaround works at least.

We will share this with the Engineering team to take a look at.

Regards,

Akash