Canvas relies on Apple's native AVFoundation and CoreImage frameworks to ensure that media playback on your desktop is as efficient as possible. Because of this tight system integration, Canvas supports a wide array of modern media formats without requiring third-party codecs.
Video Formats
For the highest quality cinematic live wallpapers, Canvas recommends using hardware-accelerated video formats.
- MP4 (H.264 / H.265 HEVC): The recommended format for Canvas. It offers the best balance of visual fidelity and file size, and decoding is handled directly by Apple Silicon media engines, resulting in near-zero CPU usage.
- MOV: Apple's native QuickTime format is fully supported.
Static & Animated Images
If you prefer stylized looping animations or high-resolution photography, Canvas supports modern image containers that offer smaller file sizes than traditional GIFs.
- GIF: Fully supported for classic looping animations, though not recommended for high-resolution displays due to file size and decoding overhead.
- AVIF & WebP: Next-generation formats that provide superior quality for both animated and static images at a fraction of the file size.
- PNG / JPEG / HEIC: Standard static images are supported. When a static image is used, Canvas effectively uses 0% CPU and zero GPU cycles after the initial render.
Performance Considerations
While Canvas is designed to be extremely lightweight, using massive 8K uncompressed video files will naturally consume more memory. To maintain optimal performance, we recommend using 4K H.265 (HEVC) MP4s. Canvas is smart enough to automatically pause video decoding whenever a window is maximized over it, completely freeing up system resources when you need them most.