Using Windows Phone 8.1 and even early versions of Windows 10 Mobile, there was a fairly straight forward way of viewing living images on your PC. See RumoredNow's post on this here.
However, that has all changed. There are no longer 4 file types of files, and the actual .mp4 video is now embedded inside your JPG, increasing the size of the JPG that you copy over. I'm going to show you how to extract the video portion. It will not decrease the size of the original JPG, however, as you'll be making a copy of the video.
In Windows 10 Mobile version 1511, build 10586.11 and higher, there is 1 file saved instead of the 4 when you take a living image. Just the .jpg file is saved and the .mp4 is embedded in that file. If you are doing rich capture, that is saved as a .nar file, and I've got a separate topic to show you how to extract that and adjust your lighting on your PC.
Extracting the Living Image Video
Copy the .jpg file to your PC using a file explorer. Change the extension of the .jpg to .zip. Now open it using a program such as 7zip. You will see that it is indeed an archive zipped file when you do this, and 7zip recognizes it and opens it quite nicely.
You will see 2 initial entries. A file called "[Content_Types].xml" and a folder called "formats". Open the "formats" folder.
Inside the formats folder is another folder called "living", so let's open that folder as well.
Inside the living folder are 2 files.
1. living.jpg
2. living.mp4
The living.jpg is "end picture" that the living image is supposed to show AFTER playing the video portion. It is the same resolution as the video itself.
The living.mp4 is the living image video.
Extract both files, and you can use the much smaller living.jpg, rename it to the original .jpg file name, and save a lot of space in your pictures folder. You can rename the living.mp4 to the original filename but with the .mp4 extension and put it in a living images folder of your choosing. You can play the .mp4 file on your PC or phone either way.
That's all there is to it! You can now extract and view your living images on your PC, Tablet, or other phones that aren't a Windows Phone!
It's as easy as that!
To be able to view the image in full resolution, you'll need to rename the file from .zip back to .jpg. While 7zip is able to open the .jpg file and get at embedded files in it, you will not see the original .jpg file at full resolution there. It only shows the "extra" embedded files.
However, that has all changed. There are no longer 4 file types of files, and the actual .mp4 video is now embedded inside your JPG, increasing the size of the JPG that you copy over. I'm going to show you how to extract the video portion. It will not decrease the size of the original JPG, however, as you'll be making a copy of the video.
In Windows 10 Mobile version 1511, build 10586.11 and higher, there is 1 file saved instead of the 4 when you take a living image. Just the .jpg file is saved and the .mp4 is embedded in that file. If you are doing rich capture, that is saved as a .nar file, and I've got a separate topic to show you how to extract that and adjust your lighting on your PC.
Extracting the Living Image Video
Copy the .jpg file to your PC using a file explorer. Change the extension of the .jpg to .zip. Now open it using a program such as 7zip. You will see that it is indeed an archive zipped file when you do this, and 7zip recognizes it and opens it quite nicely.
You will see 2 initial entries. A file called "[Content_Types].xml" and a folder called "formats". Open the "formats" folder.
Inside the formats folder is another folder called "living", so let's open that folder as well.
Inside the living folder are 2 files.
1. living.jpg
2. living.mp4
The living.jpg is "end picture" that the living image is supposed to show AFTER playing the video portion. It is the same resolution as the video itself.
The living.mp4 is the living image video.
Extract both files, and you can use the much smaller living.jpg, rename it to the original .jpg file name, and save a lot of space in your pictures folder. You can rename the living.mp4 to the original filename but with the .mp4 extension and put it in a living images folder of your choosing. You can play the .mp4 file on your PC or phone either way.
That's all there is to it! You can now extract and view your living images on your PC, Tablet, or other phones that aren't a Windows Phone!
It's as easy as that!
To be able to view the image in full resolution, you'll need to rename the file from .zip back to .jpg. While 7zip is able to open the .jpg file and get at embedded files in it, you will not see the original .jpg file at full resolution there. It only shows the "extra" embedded files.
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