TIFF to HEVC Converter

How to Convert TIFF to HEVC Online

1. Upload Your TIFF Files: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to select one or many .tif / .tiff frames. Multi-page TIFFs are supported, and so are numbered sequences (frame_0001.tif, frame_0002.tif...). Batch uploads queue together so a whole timelapse becomes a single HEVC clip.
2. Pick Merge Strategy and Quality Preset: Choose "Merge images" to stitch every TIFF into one HEVC video (timelapse mode), or "Video per image" to render each TIFF as its own short clip. Under File Compression, default is the Quality Preset at "Very High (Recommended)" — drop to High or Medium for smaller files, or switch to Constant Quality (CRF) for fine control (lower number = better quality; 18-28 is the practical range for x265).
3. Set Image Duration, Resolution, and Background (Optional): Duration controls seconds per frame (defaults to 5; pick 1/24, 1/30, or 1/60 second for true real-time playback). Video resolution lets you Keep original, pick a Fixed preset (4320p / 2160p / 1440p / 1080p / 720p / 480p / 360p / 240p / 144p), Preset Resolutions (1920x1080, 1280x720, etc.), or enter a custom Width x Height. Background Color (Black default; White, Gray, and 20+ named colors) only applies when frames don't fill the canvas.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Each TIFF page or file is decoded, color-converted to YUV 4:2:0, and re-encoded with the x265 HEVC encoder. No watermark, no sign-up, no account needed.

Why Convert TIFF to HEVC?

TIFF is the archival workhorse of scientific imaging, photography, GIS, and print — a single 16-bit RGB frame at 4K can be 50 MB or more, and a 1,000-frame microscopy session easily fills 50 GB. HEVC (H.265) was finalised by ITU-T in 2013 and routinely delivers around 50% smaller files than H.264 at matching quality, which makes it the practical container for sharing or reviewing a TIFF sequence once analysis is done.

• Time-lapse microscopy and live-cell imaging — A 24-hour fluorescence experiment captured at one frame per minute produces 1,440 TIFFs. Image.sc and microscopy facilities (Duke, UW Digital Microscopy) recommend keeping raw TIFFs for analysis but rendering HEVC for lab meetings and publication supplementary videos.
• Astrophotography stacks and deep-sky timelapses — Astronomers shoot RAW or 16-bit TIFF frames (often 6K+ per side) and need a compact video to share on Cloudy Nights, YouTube, or Vimeo. HEVC at CRF 18 keeps subtle gradients that H.264 would band.
• GoPro / drone TIFF sequence exports — Some workflows (DaVinci Resolve, Lightroom export-as-TIFF) emit TIFF burst frames that need to be re-assembled into a video. Compared with H.264 the same clip is roughly half the size (cam-do.com reports a 152 MB H.264 timelapse re-encoded to 2.5 MB HEVC at matched quality).
• 3D-printer monitoring and security camera snapshots — Octoprint and many IP cameras dump per-event TIFF/JPEG frames; merging into HEVC creates a single reviewable clip and offloads storage from full-resolution stills.
• Print-to-screen handoff for archives — Libraries and archives keep TIFFs for preservation (lossless, well-supported in archival pipelines per Code4Lib Journal) but publish HEVC for the website so patrons can scrub through a digitised manuscript or microfilm reel without downloading hundreds of TIFFs.
• Drone and satellite mapping playbacks — Orthorectified TIFF tiles or temporal TIFF stacks (Landsat-style) become an HEVC flythrough that compresses 50-90% smaller than the source while staying smooth on most modern hardware.

TIFF vs HEVC — Format Comparison

Source: caniuse.com/hevc; ITU-T H.265 recommendation; Adobe TIFF spec.

HEVC Encoder Settings Quick Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

Will the output be a single video or one video per TIFF?

You choose. "Merge images" stitches every uploaded TIFF (in filename order) into one HEVC clip — the standard timelapse workflow. "Video per image" produces one short HEVC file per input frame, which is useful when each TIFF is a separate scene rather than a frame in a sequence. For numbered sequences (frame_0001.tif, frame_0002.tif...), Merge is almost always what you want.

What's the right Image Duration for a real-time timelapse?

Pick 1/24 second for 24 fps cinema-style, 1/30 second for 30 fps NTSC, or 1/60 second for 60 fps action footage. The default 5 seconds per frame is meant for slideshow-style playback — useful for a manuscript scan or pathology slide review, but it produces a very slow video for a 1,440-frame microscopy session. A 1,440-frame stack at 1/30 second runs 48 seconds; at the 5-second default it would run two full hours.

Will my multi-page TIFF be split into frames automatically?

Yes. Each page in a multi-page TIFF (common from scanners and microscopy software like Fiji/ImageJ) becomes one video frame in document/filename order. If page order matters (z-stacks, time series) confirm your imaging software exports pages in capture order, or export to numbered single-page TIFFs first.

Does HEVC play in Chrome and Firefox, or only Safari?

Safari has full HEVC support from Safari 13 onward (macOS 10.13+ and iOS 11+) — that's Apple's home codec. Chrome added partial support in version 107 (mostly relying on platform hardware decoders), Firefox added partial support in version 137 (Windows-first), and Edge supports it partially via the Windows HEVC Video Extensions. For maximum cross-browser playback, wrap the HEVC stream in an MP4 container (convert HEVC to MP4) or fall back to H.264 (HEVC to MP4) for older audiences.

How much smaller will the HEVC be compared to my source TIFFs?

Dramatically smaller. A 1,000-frame, 1920x1080 TIFF stack at 8-bit RGB is roughly 6 GB uncompressed. The same content as HEVC at CRF 22 is typically 5-40 MB depending on motion complexity — savings of 99% or more. Versus an H.264 re-encode at matched perceptual quality, HEVC saves another 25-50% (ITU-T figure; cam-do.com observed 98% reduction on a GoPro timelapse).

Can I preserve the 16-bit or 32-bit depth of my TIFF data?

Not at full precision in standard HEVC delivery. Main 10 (10-bit) is the highest profile in wide playback support; Main 12 exists but is rare in consumer decoders. If you started with 16-bit microscopy TIFFs, the conversion clips to 10-bit YUV — fine for visual review, but keep the raw TIFFs for any quantitative analysis. For lossless intermediates, TIFF to MP4 with a high CRF or TIFF to MOV with ProRes-like settings preserve more dynamic range.

What if my TIFFs are different sizes or aspect ratios?

The encoder pads to the largest frame and fills the empty area with your chosen Background Color (Black by default, plus White / Gray / 20+ named colors). To avoid pillarboxing, crop or resize the source TIFFs to a uniform size first (resize TIFF) or pick a Fixed Resolution preset so the encoder scales each frame to fit. For best HEVC efficiency, stick to even widths/heights (1920x1080, 1280x720); odd dimensions get padded by 1 px.

Why x265 instead of platform HEVC encoders?

x265 is the reference open-source HEVC encoder maintained by MulticoreWare; it's what FFmpeg ships and what most professional pipelines use. Hardware encoders (NVENC, Quick Sync, VideoToolbox) are faster but typically 10-30% less efficient at matched quality, which matters when you're encoding hundreds of frames into a single archive copy. For one-off web previews the difference is negligible.

Can I trim the sequence before converting?

Yes — under Advanced Options you can set a start time and duration so only a slice of the merged sequence is encoded. Useful when only the first 200 of 2,000 frames are interesting. For source video already in HEVC, the dedicated trim HEVC page is faster than re-encoding.

Is there a file size or count limit?

There's no hard per-file cap on the free tier, but very large jobs (thousands of multi-gigabyte TIFFs) are best split into batches so the browser session stays responsive. For very large sequences, downsizing to 1080p or 720p with Fixed Resolution first usually pays off — most viewers can't tell the difference and the encode finishes faster.