May 24th, 2006
Windows Media Photo to Challenge JPEG?
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Today, at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Microsoft unveiled a new digital image format that it hopes will someday supplant the ubiquitous JPEG. Windows Media Photo will be supported in Windows Vista and also in XP.
Typical digital cameras today use 6:1 compression, and according to Bill Crow, program manager for Windows Media Photo, Windows Media Photo could use double the compression with better quality. The presentation today showed 24:1 compressed images, with much better detail than either JPEG or JPEG 2000 images at the same compression, although the pictures were still distorted.
The new image format was received with cautious enthusiasm by some of the WinHEC attendees. Ralf Mueller, an application planner at mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson, said he would look into the new format just as his company looked into supporting Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video.
“Considering our development cycle, I could not see us supporting Windows Media Photo before 2008,” Mueller said.
Steven Wells, a part-time professional photographer, said he sees promise in the new file format. “The JPEG artifacts make it almost unusable for professional photographers,” he said. “Windows Media Photo is possibly the first viable compression format.” Source: News.com
We Say: Adoption will be key. Adobe and Apple will have to support the format for it to win over a large audience. Of course, licensing of the format will be another issue.
John Corliss says:
There will be a catch. There’s ALWAYS a catch to anything that Microsoft does. Remember WMF, for example, and how proprietary it is, how it’s often difficult to play .wmf files.
There isn’t one non-greedy bone in anybody in the whole Microsoft organization, and everything they do is totally motivated by the desire for profit. That’s not always a bad thing, but it’s definitely not the same as being motivated by a desire to contribute to the betterment of computing.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Jim Frost says:
Bwahahahaha. They’re dreaming if they think they can get a new still format out there. The last format we saw get any penetration at all was PNG and that only because people were trying to avoid GIF licensing … and even PNG was not all that widely accepted.
Maybe if JPEG were seriously flawed, but it’s actually pretty good.
It gave me a great laugh though, thanks.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:01 am
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Windows Media Photo To Challenge JPEG?
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Microsoft unveiled a new digital image format that it hopes will someday supplant the ubiquitous JPEG. Windows Media Photo will be supported in Windows Vista…
May 25th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Ran Kailie says:
Jim I believe you’re off base. PNG has been steadily growing in adoption, and once IE 7 is released with transparent PNG support, there won’t be any reason to use GIF.
For the most part I’ve stopped using GIF in an web design work I’ve done recently, and only create GIF images to work in IE 6. PNG is definately the way to go, and honestly I use it more then I use JPEG anymore.
The real key to this new image format from microsoft is like Alice said, adoption. If Apple and Adobe don’t adopt it, there is no way it will replace JPEG.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:01 pm