JPEG on the way out

[Chris Keall]

Rival format details here.

[Greg]

Importantly though will it be able to be viewed in a browser?

[mejobloggs]

If it will be as widely supported as jpeg, then I am definately looking forward to it.

[johnd]

So is MS up to it's old tricks i.e. is this format going to be proprietory so that only MS users can utilize the format? If so, I would suggest that in today's environment where open-ness is becoming more the norm, it is a dead duck?

[winmacguy]

Currently both Adobe- Lightroom , Apple-Aperture and all major camera manufacturers support the RAW format which is an open standards high Def camera image format widely used by professional photographers world wide so I would agree with johnd.

A raw i

[R2x1]

I would trust MS implicitly, just like I would trust a concrete life jacket.

I suspect the purpose of both JPG and this MS flim-flammery is to give compressed files. RAW is not too hot at this.

[Chilling_Silence]

This format has been around a while now, I saw previews of this format & a picture using it (when compared with JPG & PNG) in like April / May last year...

Still not _officially_ an open format from what I undertand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Photo#Licensing

[winmacguy]

Very true R2x1, I think MS just likes its own input everywhere. I don't see anything wrong with the jpeg format in its current form for sending files over the web that are only going to be for personal and person to person use which I assume is what the new Microsoft format is designed for. Generally if your wanting to send print quality image files to a printer or designer there are other higher quality image formats already in use that are perfectly sufficient as are the methods of sending them.

[Murray P]

Winmacguy. RAW data is not an open file format per se. Try using any old converter without the correct plugin and it won't work because most camera manufacturers use a proprietary sensor which require different algorithms to process and interpret, some do process the RAW data to some extent which means it is no longer strictly speaking RAW data.

Have a look at Open RAW - The RAW Problem. Well worth a cruise around. I hope they get there.


Anywho, JPEG is getting a bit tired and JPEG-2000 hasn't really taken off for whatever reason, possibly because it is reliant on patents, and this newish MS offering looks pretty handy. But, I'd think twice before trusting my images to an MS format, then decide not to (can you see MS wanting me to HD Photo in Linux?). Perhaps for much the same reasons that JPEG-2000 hasn't made great inroads in to image file format, JPEG is universally accepted and doesn't carry the sort of baggage the others do (as yet MS hasn't released .hdp under the Open Specification Promise [sic]).

[bob_doe_nz]

I always though that PNG was supposed to be the next Jpeg