HEIC has gradually become the mainstream high-efficiency image format for smartphones in recent years. With the same image quality, its required storage space is only about half of JPEG, which not only effectively reduces the space used on your phone, but also saves upload bandwidth and storage capacity when backing up to the cloud.
However, although the advantages of HEIC are quite obvious, you may still encounter compatibility limitations on older devices or applications that do not support this format. Many users have experienced this issue on their NAS in the past:
“You have to buy a license to play on NAS, otherwise you can’t even see the thumbnails.”
“I just want to view photos and videos taken on my phone, but HEIC and HEVC can’t be opened?”
On QNAP NAS, if you want to browse HEIC photos in File Station or QuMagie, you previously needed to use the third-party application CAYIN Media Sign Player and purchase a Plus license to process them. Now, with the launch of CAYIN Media Viewer, you can meet most core needs with just the free basic version.
The brand new CAYIN Media Viewer can directly replace the old CAYIN Media Sign Player and supports NAS systems running QTS 5.2.0 or QuTS hero h5.2.0 and above. It can be downloaded from the App Center and requires Multimedia Console version 2.8.0 or above.
Activation is also very simple—just open CAYIN Media Viewer and activate online.
Once setup is complete, you can directly browse HEIC photos taken by your phone and play HEVC format videos in File Station and QuMagie. The system will also automatically generate thumbnails, making file management and browsing more intuitive and convenient.
