Microsoft Takes on the JPEG
Microsoft’s new Windows Media Photo image format specification is finally seeing the light of day. The software company began lobbying for WMPhoto to replace the JPEG image format this week at WindowsHEC in Seattle. Microsoft has taken the image compression spec out of development and has labeled it as a final release. There is also word that MS is keeping the standard totally free, but licensing details are still being worked out.
According to BetaNews, a Microsoft spokesperson claims that WMPhoto will offer the same or better image quality as JPEG at half the file size. That’s twice the compression (12:1 versus the standard 6:1 of JPEG) with the same or better quality.
This claim, while unsupported as of this writing, may very well signal the slow death of JPEG. Of course, the JPEG format is currently king. It’s supported by almost every digital imaging environment on Earth and beyond. But since WMPhoto will be supported by Windows Vista when it’s released this fall, it is conceivable that we’ll see equally widespread support for WMPhoto one year from now. WMPhoto will also be the native image format for Microsoft’s XPM documents, their competing format for PDF.
Some of the new WMPhoto features: Lossless or lossy compression, multi-resolution and sub-region decoding (also called “smart compression,” this is a technique that some digital cameras employ in which less compression is applied to more detailed regions of the image), and different display formats for print and web. Digital photography and digital imaging experts are giving it a tentative thumbs-up at the moment, as noted in this CNet article.
Will Microsoft win this one? Browser developers and camera manufacturers will have no choice but to support WMPhoto, but will users respond positively?
