MS Proposes JPEG Alternative

automatix writes "Microsoft's new competitor to the omnipresent JPEG format has been shown at WinHEC and is discussed on CNET. The Windows Media Photo format has many promises associated with it. The program manager is claiming 'We can do it in half the size of a JPEG file.'. While 'the philosophy has been that licensing should not be a restriction', it is interesting that the specification requires a click-through agreement to even read it."

Ummmm why?

[BWJones]

So, my question is fundamentally..........WHY? Other than to simply start solidifying platform specific requirements for websites and other such nonsense, i see no compelling reason why we should even give this a second glance. Besides, Microsoft does know that compression algorithms already present in JPEG can go further than they typically do resulting in smaller, yet more distorted images just like their "Microsoft format" JPEG, although I will allow that some of their approach is a bit more flexible than the current JPEG standard.

But the fundamental issue is that if Microsoft was being truly open and supportive of commonly used standards, this compression format would not require any click through agreement whatsoever to implement and would not require Windows Media Photo.

Steven Wells, quoted in the article as saying "Licensing can kill this" is absolutely correct.

Re:Ummmm why?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

So, my question is fundamentally..........WHY?

DRM.

(Oh, and expect PNG support in IE7 to be downgraded)

Re:Ummmm why?

[nagora]

expect PNG support in IE7 to be downgraded

It's hard to see how even MS's third-rate programmers could make the PNG support worse than it is in IE6.

TEE

Re:Ummmm why?

[Fordiman]

I can confirm that PNG and MNG both work properly in IE7 Beta.

Re:Ummmm why?

[virtualchoirboy]

Or maybe it's because Forgent Networks filed a lawsuit against MS and Apple and about 40 other companies over the JPEG compression algorithms. If this standard gets adopted and popular, MS can drop JPEG entirely and pay penalties, but no licensing fees while earning licensing fees in return.

I only did one Google search, but easily came up with this [macnn.com] old article from last October. I haven't really followed the case, but it's one reason why MS may have done this.

Re:Ummmm why?

[Bastian]

They can try, but in the best case, I bet it would work about as well as when everyone tried it with GIF. Of course, that would require Microsoft's replacement to be an open standard, which it doesn't appear to be.

Re:Ummmm why?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Well, according to NE asia's may edition, the USPTO is going reexamine forgent's patent [nikkeibp.com] (at the behest of The public patent foundation [pubpat.org]. But that's really kind of besides the point 'cause all of MS's products are going to come under patent attacks.

There's just too many software patents out there (and too many broad ones) for MS to work their way around all of them, forgent will just buy up some company with a patent on entropy encoding & turn around & sue MS.

If jpeg patents are MS's fear, a new ima

Re:Ummmm why?

[pyite]

It's so silly. The only one who should be able to file suit is Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier. After all, the JPEG standard is a DCT is a DFT.

Re:Ummmm why?

[pyite]

Hah, thanks, but I can't get too excited about that. If I did, it would be acknowledging that there was something novel about my comment. But there isn't. Admitedly, when I first saw Fourier series, I thought it was the most interesting math I had yet encountered. Now, that was in no small part due to this guy [rutgers.edu] and his excellent teaching and explanation of Fourier Series [rutgers.edu]. This is really no different than when it was proved by Fourier that any function (for some reasonable definition of any) could be represen

Re:Ummmm why?

[Overly Critical Guy]

(Oh, and expect PNG support in IE7 to be downgraded)

Actually, this explains why PNG has been crippled for so very long in IE. They didn't want PNG to gain a foothold before they could introduce their unwanted Microsoft version.

I don't know what Microsoft is thinking. Their own image format? That's the last thing they should be introducing right now. This company is full of lunatics.

Re:Ummmm why?

[blane.bramble]

Well, I clicked the "I do not agree" button, and it still takes you through to the details...

Re:Ummmm why?

[The Cisco Kid]

If you click the 'I agree' it takes you to download some file that ends in ".DOC" - since I couldnt find any specifications for *that* file, I wasnt able to read them.

Re:not really

[BiggyP]

it's widely accepted that the full spec for MS word's doc format is on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard".

Marketing vs. Technical Gore

[abb3w]

If you click on the "I do not accept this agreement." button, it submits the value "I do not accept this agreement.", and you get taken to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx? [microsoft.com], with some generic marketroid babble about how their new spec Whitens teeth, cures BO, and will put a chicken in every pot and pot in every chick.

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? [microsoft.com]. However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats [microsoft.com]. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement [microsoft.com].", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c [microsoft.com]....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c [microsoft.com] — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co

Re:Marketing vs. Technical Gore

[Heisenbug]

Hey, I'm not a lawyer, but I am in law school. As a rule of thumb, you should remember that laws aren't evaluated by computers -- they're evaluated by humans. Especially in contract law, which is all about equity, the judge is going to do whatever he thinks is common sense, with an eye towards making the market work.

So, you know it's a loophole, Microsoft knows it's a loophole -- I bet the judge will know too, and shoot it down. I don't really know the answer, but I suspect that you would stand up and say,

Re:Ummmm why?

[hummassa]

I clicked on both the agree and disagree buttons. They do in fact go to different pages. Clicking on the I agree button takes you to a very sparse page with a link to download a Word document containing the specifications. When you actually dig around on the page you're directed to when clicking "disagree" to download the specification, you end up back at the same license agreement page.

You must agree to their license to get the specification.

OR... you download it directly from this place? [microsoft.com]

Re:Ummmm why?

[KilobyteKnight]

In the footer is this notice:

Microsoft Confidential. © 2005-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. By accessing, using or providing feedback on these materials, you agree to the attached license agreement.

Someone should change that to: "By accessing, using or providing feedback on these materials, or attempting to sue anyone over these materials you agree to the to give the person who altered this document $37,000,000,000 in US currency." And then promptly distribute it widely.

By the way, anyone replying to, reading, commenting about, or in any way accessing the material in this post; including but not limited to moderating, meta-moterating, storing in a database, retrieving from a database, viewing in a web browser, including it in or making a reference to it in a legal document, or accidentially glancing at this post agrees to send $100 to me for each occurance.

Re:Ummmm why?

[cp.tar]

Hey... I think I'll have to change my .sig...

Re:Ummmm why?

[Gumber]

This gives me an interesting idea. What about setting up firefox to provide it's own terms of use as part of the HTTP request header. Something to the effect of "By providing content in response to this HTTP request, you agree to not impose any bullshit terms of use on me."

Re:Ummmm why?

[Epistax]

Dude just do a subband contrast threshold analysis on the image and you can often find that you can compress using the DWT (discrete wavelet transform) (JPEG2000) with ratios like 4:1 or better while still having a visually lossless compression. As long as the conrasts in the distortions in the various subbands are below the contrasts in the image data itself (in those subbands), the image is pretty much visually lossless.

Like, duh.

Re:Ummmm why?

[Epistax]

Ok fine no one gets it. A banddand is a range of frequencies you will find in an image. As it turns out, we don't respond to error in an image by the image itself, but by the frequency that the error in the image disrupts. We're worse at seeing disruptions in the high and low range of frequencies, and better in the midrange. Somewhat ironically that means we can take advantage of the high and low and compress more inside those frequency ranges. A DWT or DCT wil give you component pieces for various frequencies which you can simply or delete to form the compression (DCT is JPEG, DWT is JPEG2000). Remember the square blocks in JPEG compression? That's from the DCT. The DWT is more circular so you'll never see square blocking with JPEG2000.

If anyone is interested and wants some not-so-light reading, check out http://foulard.ece.cornell.edu/publications/chandl er_5749_40.pdf [cornell.edu]
It'd be awesome if someone made a compressor for regular images using this technique.

Re:Ummmm why?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, forget color. A color image is just three channels of black and white.

Imagine you have a back and white image which is pure white noise. Consider what a single horizontal line of that image would look like if you drew it as you would a sound wave, with the bright pixels being high, and the dark pixels being low.

As you step from one pixel to the next, you could have a change of up to 255. There's no predictable pattern. The "frequency" of this noise is high, because the potential difference from one pixel to the next is great.

Now imagine that you apply a smoothing filter to this line of noise, and bring the changes from one pixel down. That is what you get if you blur an image. Now the max differences from one pixel to the next is much lower. The frequencies in a blurry image are low.

There's other ways to consider the frequencies of an image as well. In Wavelets, you would scale the image down to 2x2, and this would be one layer of the image. Then you'd scale it down to 4x4, and scale up the 2x2 image with bilinear filtering and subtract it from the 4x4 image. The 4x4 difference image now represents a different set of frequencies than the 2x2 image did. You store the difference because what you're interested in is the frequency of the 4x4 layer. You want to add that frequency on top of the 2x2 layer when you reconstruct the image, and if you have that "frequency" seperated out, you can compress the data better.

Another way of looking for frequencies in an image is to seperate the image into bitplanes. I think TIFF does this, because it comrpessed the image about the same as seperating the image into bitplanes then compressing with zip. Anyway the idea here is to take all the first bits of each pixel and stick them one after another, and then stick the second bits of all the pixels one after the other... You'll end up with 8 images this way, and you'll find that the image with the highest bits is easily recognizeable and has clear sharp edges, but when you get to the image with the lowest bits, all you have is noise. If you discard that noise when reconstructing the image then you will get banding in the image, but you could in theory interpolate the values of the band above to fill in the noise. You'll lose noise in the image though so stuff will look smoother than it did. Wavelet does somethign similar when it discards the differences and smooths the portions of the image that are in between sharp edges.

Re:Ummmm why?

[Jere H]

This is a topic that can be very difficult to grasp. There are multiple semester courses in Fourier analysis in college. I'll try to make this as simple as possible.

It is easier to explain with sound first.
Imagine how a recording of your voice looks, when converted to an image of a sound wave.
This waveform has peaks and valleys. If we take a triangle wave ( /\/\/\/ ) we can see that it almost looks like a sine wave. We can, in fact, convert the triangle wave into a summation of cosine waves. The main cosin

Re:Ummmm why?

[ceoyoyo]

I'm not sure how you're using the word circular.

Generally when you're talking about signal processing and you mention a circular transform it means that the transform assumes your last sample and first sample are adjacent... like the old video games where if you flew off the right side of the screen you'd appear back on the left side.

Fourier (and DC) transforms are circular (they're basically circular convolutions). That can obviously lead to artefacts on the edges of the patch you're transforming because

Re:Ummmm why?

[Mr_Silver]

So, my question is fundamentally..........WHY?

Why not?

• If we'd all said that GIF was good enough, PNG wouldn't have happened.
• If we'd all said that ZIP was good enough, RAR and 7z wouldn't have happened.
• If we'd all said that WAV was good enough, MP3 wouldn't have happened.
• If we'd all said that MP3 was good enough, AAC wouldn't have happened.
• ...and on...and on...and on...

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with proposing another file format. The current formats we have now or in the future are never going to be good enough and there will always be room for improvement.

Having said all that, I agree with the parent comment in the fact that licencing will make or break this format and the click-through agreement doesn't bode well.

Half right

[SuperKendall]

GIF was good enough. PNG exists because the world is full of geeks who think that they are lawyers.

Or they wanted alpha channels and greater bit depths and better compression options.

ZIP is good enough. RAR and 7z (and bz2 and ...) are stupid.
WAV is not a compressed format. Apples and oranges.

Damn straight

MP3 is good enough. AAC is evil. (hint - the difference isn't quality, it is control)

AAC is MP4, a patented but open standard - just like MP3. Apples use of AAC in ITMS wraps the Fairplay DRM around that

Re:Ummmm why?

[TheRaven64]

AAC also has no reason to exist, your [sic] right about the control

No. MP3 is MPEG-1 audio layer 3. It was part of the initial MPEG specification. It was about as good as could be done with the processing power available at the time, but used a fairly primitive psycho-acoustic model and had noticeable artefacts. The MPEG-2 specification introduced an additional way of encoding audio, the Advanced Audio CODEC (AAC), which gave significantly better compression. This was refined (new profiles were added) in MPEG-4. All of these provided significant improvement over the original.

bzip2 serves a different purpose to zip and is more of a pointless replacement for gzip

No. Gzip is a stream compressor. Bzip2 is a block compressor. You can add gzip to a stream with minimal latency. Bzip2 requires blocks of 100-900KB to work with. If you sent an IM session through bzip2, then it would add huge delays. Gzip would not. This is why gzip is used for things like HTTP - you can just add it into the output stream and decompress it at the browser's end. Bzip2, however, gives significantly better compression ratios on files, for precisely the same reason. They do not serve the same purpose (although some people do seem to persist in using gzip as if it were a block compressor).

Re:Ummmm why?

[ajs]

To quote MS in answer to your question:

Objectives for Introducing a New Still Image Format

Today's file formats for continuous tone images present many limitations in maintaining the highest image quality or delivering the most optimal system performance. Windows Media(TM) Photo was designed to remove these limitations. The design objectives include:

• High performance, embedded system friendly compression
  
  • Small memory footprint
    
  • Simple, integer-only operations (no divides)
  
  
• Industry-leading compression quality
  
• Lossless or lossy compression using the same algorithm
  
• Support a very wide range of pixel formats:
  
  • Monochrome, RGB, CMYK or n-Channel image representation
    
  • 8 or 16-bit unsigned integer
    
  • 16 or 32-bit signed integer
    
  • 16 or 32-bit floating point
    
  • Several packed bit formats
    
    • 1bpc monochrome
      
    • 5 or 10bpc RGB
      
    • RGBE Radiance
  
  
• Simple, extensible TIFF-like container structure
  
• Planar or interleaved alpha channel
  
• Embedded ICC Profile
  
• EXIF and XMP metadata

Windows Media(TM) Photo is the only format that offers high dynamic range image encoding, lossless or lossy compression, multiple color formats, and performance that enables practical in-device implementation.

Re:Lossless AND Lossy

[harmonica]

If you look at JPEG, the Wikipedia article states:

In computing, JPEG (pronounced jay-peg) is a commonly used standard method of lossy compression for photographic images.

And now you see that it only supports lossy. There are other lossless formats out there but I don't think there is another popular MIME file format that is widely used to support both lossy and lossless.

Actually, JPEG can do both lossy and lossless, no matter what the Wikipedia article might say (I haven't read

JPEG-LS Vs JPEG

[eldavojohn]

I think you're confusing JPEG with JPEG-LS [jpeg.org]. Yes, they are both "JPEG"s but I don't think many applications natively support JPEG-LS. In fact, I wanted to use it in Photoshop and had to go get a plug-in [datacompression.info]. Whether or not JPEG-LS is as efficient as the new proposed MS format, I do not know. I think that JPEG-LS was slow to catch on because people just didn't care about upgrading their software to use it. I would wager that Microsoft will force third party software to support their new filetype.

I'm not

Re:JPEG-LS Vs JPEG

[gowen]

Jpeg2000 supports both lossy and lossless compression, and a variety of wavelet-based compression schemes that work better than normal JPEG.

Unfortunately, no-one supports Jpeg2000.

Re:JPEG-LS Vs JPEG

[mikeboone]

Plus, I think that JPEG 2000 is still under the threat of patent litigation [google.com]. Too bad, because lossless JPEG 2000 files are a lot smaller than similar TIFFs.

Re:JPEG-LS Vs JPEG

[shades66]

"Since it's a MS format, presumably the codec will be embedded within the OS and will have an easy hook to read/write the format from any program..."

don't forget the hooks to allow an image to format your hard-drive/ run executables as root and maybe even give it facilities to copy your secure account/bank details and mail them out.

Re:Lossless AND Lossy

[iainl]

Woah, you mean we've got to use a second file extension if we switch to lossless?

That's far too much work, let's just invent an entire new standard, just so our image directories look neat.

Re:Lossless AND Lossy

[mysticgoat]

The primary reason to favor jpg and gif over png on web pages is that png support in MSIE has not been very good. Go figure.

I mostly use Paint Shop Pro (v8.x) for image development (I started with PSP more than a decade ago). The lossless png format with layers, alpha, etc appears to be a solid format for use during image manipulation and for archiving-- but it is less convenient than PSP's proprietary format so I haven't done much with it. Yet. As I'm in the process of a very slow migration to GIMP, I expect I'll be using png more "in house". Converting my archived development images (that can run to 12 MB or more, what with all the layers, etc) to png will probably be the best way to move them from PSP to GIMP. If I can do all my development in png, then I'll be pretty certain that I can access my archived images from any image manipulation software I'm likely to use in the future (it is unlikely that I'd ever use an MS product... but PhotoShop, or something from Canon or Kodak might be in my future).

But to get back to your question-- I can't think of any reason except poor browser support for not using the png format. And poor browser support is increasingly a thing of the past (Firefox, Opera, etc are continually improving png capabilities and rendering speeds).

Re:Lossless AND Lossy

[mysticgoat]

PNG is really only suitable for line art...

Others in this discussion have pointed out that PNG has a truecolor mode as well as the 256 color and lower modes. The only differences I've noticed when I've been working with portraits and landscape photos in PNGs rather than JPGs are

1. Some image manipulation software takes a little longer to open a PNG than a JPG
2. PNGs do not degrade over multiple editing sessions the way that JPGs do

Big claims indeed!

[ravee]

All the exciting features apart, will Microsoft release the file format as an open standard ? That is the big question. Any new file format is most welcome as long as they are open and not controlled by propritery licences.

Re:Big claims indeed!

[user24]

"Any new file format is most welcome as long as they are open and not controlled by propritery licences."

yes, that's why gif, flash, pdf, and real audio aren't popular.

Re:Big claims indeed!

[The Cisco Kid]

GIF got popular because everyone *thought* it was free for a long time before Unisys unearthed their submarine.

Flash and Real Audio are crap.

The PDF format is completely open and documented, and you arent required to agree to any licenses to use it or to write software that reads or writes it (And in fact there is quite a bit of software that does just that - you could go an entire life using PDF *without* using any software from Adobe)

Re:Big claims indeed!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

PDF may be open, but until it stops sucking I will continue to open a google cache version of a pdf before I will open one directly.

You seem to be confusing the crappy software you are running with a file format. Internet Explorer sucks at properly rendering HTML and is full of security holes. Is that the fault of HTML or the fault of MS who wrote the program and users who don't download a better browser?

Download a decent PDF reader already.

Re:Big claims indeed!

[tongue]

The patent on LZW compression (the problematic portion of the GIF format) expired on June 30, 2003 [unisys.com], though Unisys claims to have patents and patents pending on a number of improvements to the claims in the original patent.

Is JPG open?

[drhamad]

Like all of you, I see no need for this format.

However, JPG isn't an open standard, is it? Isn't it controlled by proprietary licenses as well?

Re:Is JPG open?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

However, JPG isn't an open standard, is it? Isn't it controlled by proprietary licenses as well?

JPEG [wikipedia.org] is a standard, created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. The problem with it is that it's entirely lossy. It's great for final images but any time you edit an image you'll lose more and more of the detail.

PNG [wikipedia.org] is a newer open standard that was created in part to address the issue of loss. Prior to PNG many people used the GIF format, which is losless as well, but GIF has licensing/patent issues. M

Re:Big claims indeed!

[shutdown -p now]

Was there ever a single open, documented standard from Microsoft, even?

RTF seems to be open, but is not really documented, from what I know (or am I wrong here?). Any other candidates?

Alternative or Replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're offering it as an alternative, why? If they're offering it as a replacement, we already have JPEG2000 thanks. I guess they've given up all pretense of caring and now are going all out for a file-formats landgrab in an effort to shore up their userbase before the shit hits the fan.

Anyway, shouldn't they be concentrating on finishing Vista?

Re:Alternative or Replacement?

[grumbel]

JPEG2000 an alternative? Wake me up in 20 years or so when the patent mess around JPEG2000 is solved...

first reaction, second reaction

[boxlight]

My first reaction is:

GIF, JPG, and PNG do everything I need -- why a new image format?

My second reaction is:

Ok, I'm innovative, so maybe there is a good reason for a new image format. Maybe I'll read more. But then I re-read it's from Microsoft and it's got called Windows in it's name, and I think I've got enough MS and Win in my life -- I really don't want more.

Conclusion: No thanks.

boxlight

Re:first reaction, second reaction

[jgrahn]

GIF, JPG, and PNG do everything I need -- why a new image format?

Well, we were supposed to migrate to JPEG2000 a few years ago. That hasn't happened yet, for some reason. Is there even a free libjpeg-like C library for it?

*digs around in /var/lib/dpkg/*

Oh yes. libjasper. But the only major software which depends on it seems to be ImageMagick.

Re:first reaction, second reaction

[harmonica]

My first reaction is:

GIF, JPG, and PNG do everything I need -- why a new image format?

There are patents on certain parts of JPEG. Including the ones everyone uses, where the claim is highly disputed, by Microsoft and others are already paying licensing fees.


My second reaction is:

Ok, I'm innovative, so maybe there is a good reason for a new image format. Maybe I'll read more. But then I re-read it's from Microsoft and it's got called Windows in it's name, and I think I've got enough MS and Win in my life --

Re:first reaction, second reaction

[Alan]

The thing is, their browser doesn't even support PNG properly yet (even ie7 I believe), so why would I believe that a) they could support this properly or b) everyone else would.

My other reaction is regarding the photography side of it. Professional photographers aren't going to stop using tiff/raw formats anytime soon, and non-pros are happy enough with jpg because they don't know or care about the format, and really just want something they can get at easily and share/print easily.

Oh, and I don't trust MS not to mess up a potentially good format (if it is that) with licensing issues or other such trickery.

Re:first reaction, second reaction

[enitime]

Lossy format with alpha channel?
Better image quality for lossy format?
Better compression for lossless format?
More than 32bit colour depth?
Layers?

There's lots of reasons for new formats.

Re:first reaction, second reaction

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Conclusion: No thanks.

Yeah, until your relatives start emailing you .wpd pics 'cause they're using Vista & it says "do you want me to prepare the pictues on this device for email?" when they plug in their digital camera.

I note in the license agreement that:

Agreement does not give You rights under any Microsoft patents.

So you can download the spec to comment on it or to:

as a reference to assist You in planning and designing Your product, service or technology ("Product") to interface with a Microsoft pr

Obvious statement

[sane?]

Unless its a free open and non licenced standard with no potential patent problems that can be free implemented by all - its a dead duck.

Since the above is about as likely as duck being joined by a flying pig...

...Next.

I object to that

[Flying pig]

Or I would do if I understood what it meant. Is somebody making allegations about me and ducks? Besides, nothing promoted by Microsoft is a dead duck, it is just resting while they spend enough money on it to achieve critical mass.

Another Debate

[eldavojohn]

I think the editors should have entitled this one "Microsoft Proposes New Lawsuit Subject" instead of "Microsoft Proposes JPEG Alternative." I kid, I kid.

But seriously, is anyone else smelling that special scent of Microsoft imperialism where their current markets aren't satiating their need to dominate? I mean, they used to make only operating systems (which took them a while to perfect) and then they made Office (which took them a while to perfect) and then they made the Xbox and now they want us to use a new photo format?

I don't mind my JPEGs taking up 2 ~ 3MB each, in fact I prefer PNG [wikipedia.org] which are small and widely supported. Granted, they're not half the size of a JPEG but--you know what?--PNG doesn't have a lawsuit history like JPEG [wired.com] & GIF [gnu.org] have.

PNG is only lossless compression so I suppose it's only natural to switch to a file format that can be either lossless or lossy & will adequately adjust performance of the 'decoding' of the file if you select lossy. After reading the articles linked in the story, it sounds like Microsoft did a good job in the algorithm for this one ... now if they release it as free to use, it might take hold. But I'm not worried about switching formats anytime soon, and to quote Steve Ballmer:

The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.

Hard to buy that the company would support anything open for free use after hearing that from its CEO.

Re:Another Debate

[The Cisco Kid]

Not arguing with you, just further debunking some of the MS spew you quoted.

"Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."

Even this is MS classic twisting of words.

Open Source work *is* available to everybody. It is so available that no one (commercial company or not) is allowed to take it and lock it up into something that is NOT available to everybody.

"The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source."

You c

Re:Another Debate

[MasterC]

PNG is only lossless compression so I suppose it's only natural to switch to a file format that can be either lossless or lossy...

You do realize that JPEG can be lossless, right? Just completely skip the quantization step (or, equivalently, use a quantization matrix of ones) and you've got lossless. It's all in the Q matrix.

Re:Another Debate

[Evil Grinn]

I mean, they used to make only operating systems (which took them a while to perfect)

Microsoft never made only operating systems. Go learn about BASIC.

Re:Another Debate

[dominator]

*) Your 2-3MB JPEG photos will end up being not-so-small 20MB PNGs if you decoded them to RGBA and re-compressed them.

*) PNGs are nice and work a lot of places, but things like their alpha channel aren't properly supported on Windows, meaning that they don't work properly eveywhere.

*) All of GIF's patents have expired by now, or were held by IBM, never enforced, and are due to expire in ~2 months. Its lawsuit history is largely irrelevant now, except as historical anectdote. You should feel free to evaluate

Even a better one

[canuck57]

PNG - No royalties (ever), no click thru, open source, available to all, proven, lossless and no pattent or copyright that will cause issues.

Re:Even a better one

[grumbel]

...and pretty much useless for photos, unless one is happy with very large files.

Re:Even a better one

[RasputinAXP]

Clearly someone's never shot in RAW format before.

Re:Even a better one

[y2dt]

PNG and JPEG are not designed for the same purpose. PNG is lossless and was intended to replace GIF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Png [wikipedia.org]

it exists already

[gralem]

Isn't there already an alternative called PNG? And doesn't it have existing support? Who cares about 1/2 the file size w/ 4GB flash memory cards available all over the place? It definitely sounds like MS is pointing out false arguments to have an MS-licensed image format that they can control. It sounds very dangerous to me. If it was a RAW-like format at half the size, or something that addresses modern image issues, it would be different.

Re:it exists already

[the eric conspiracy]

If you have a DSLR and are not using RAW you are wasting 1/2 or more of the capability of your camera. The cost of a CF card is trivial compared to the cost of even one good lens let alone the entire DLSR kit which is likely to run 2000+.

Embrace and Extend

[Jon Luckey]

And then MS Frontpage will begin importing pictures as default to the new format when making web pages, and suddenly people will need IE to fully see the site. Competing browsers will not be licensed to render the new DRMed format.

We've been down similar roads before (ActiveX, WMV etc)

No thanks.

Re:Embrace and Extend

[shaggykl]

Hmm. Maybe new ads will be rendered in this new format. Then non-IE browsers will get ad-blocking for free!

Atl least they didn't call it...

[EnderGT]

.WMP - Although "Windows Media Photo" would have been more straight-forward than "Windows Digital Photo" (or whatever), can you imagine how much fun the punsters would have with that....

If they can keep from killing it with DRM and licensing, I for one would love to have a photo format where the quality doesn't degrade as much as JPEG does at high compression.

Back to basics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ofcourse this is a biased comment but after reading stories like these one has to wonder if MS doesn't change its priorities and if so; for what reason. When it comes to doing "good for the masses" MS is at an absolute bottom of the list, all they're doing is for their own profit, thats also what made them into the company they are today. The only real innovation MS has done is IMO the userinterface. That's an absolute given, they know how to distribute a desktop environment which can also be used by computer newbies.

MS has become quite big by raping standards. They're basicly picking up a product, pay for it if they have to, and start to reverse-engineer it (or something like that) and eventually come up with an own variant, thus hoping to push the original competitor out of the market (and they succeeded with that quite a couple of times, just check the history). Naturally we don't have open standards, thus tieing even more people to their products.

So my biased conclusion? Vista is going to pieces right now, the development costs are becoming staggering and new money is needed. But with big competitors like Google and Sun (to name my 2 favorites) the market has become hard. What to do? Once again copy a famous (or widely common) standard, promise to make it "bigger, better and faster" and tie the copy to your own product line. Most of the media will call it better and smoother (but they again; they'd do that with anything new) and the circus can start all over again.

One has to wonder how long MS can manage to play this game.

Why?

[zaguar]

What's the point?

The dominant image formats that we have are just fine: JPEG, GIF and PNG. Each one has its specific use (JPEG for photos, GIF for 8-bit or animated images, and PNG for alpha or lossless images.)

Currently, I can't think of anything new that this WMP (wimp?) format can do. Unless they can pack all this into ONE format:

1) Compression without introducing artifacts.
2) Accurate color, contrast and brightness.
3) Animation.
4) Alpha channel.

If they can squeeze that into one format, we wouldn't need 3 different formats anymore.

Re:Why?

[damiam]

MNG does all of those, IIRC.

Re:Why?

[Jesus_666]

It's also supported by about three programs. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but browser support for the format is abysmal: IE doesn't do it natively, Opera doesn't do it natively, the Mozilla team dropped support with Mozilla 1.5 (and all later browsers)... KHTML is pretty much the only engine out there that doesn't require a plugin to play MNG, putting MNG in the same league as Ogg Vorbis, SMIL and properly used XHTML 1.1.

I'd really like MNG to become a widely-used standard, but I doubt that will happen. People

It is TIFF hijacked

[Maljin Jolt]

Reading all of 31 pages of the document makes me understand that it is just an attempt to hijack tiff an bend it with MS patented pixel codec to become incompatible with existing tiff technology. Salted with Adobe XMP metadata, ICC metadata and EXIF metadata. All of that registered as a Microsoft trademark. Did I missed something?

Re:It is TIFF hijacked

[ameline]

Yes, that's exactly what they're doing. And it's a really butchered attempt too. So fine, they have this great new codec -- tiff has a well tested mechanism for specifying a new pixel codec. If they did it this way, they would loose absolutely no functionality - but no, they had to introduce gratuitous incompatibilities, new tags that duplicate exactly the capabilities of existing tiff tags, and remove baseline tiff capabilities. All while maintaining the 32 bit file size limitations of tiff.

What a hack job. I would recommend anybody to stay (far, far) away from supporting this format until there is a (very) strong business case for it (Be pragmatic -- don't loose money over it, but don't help this become standard).

In summary, the MS we've come to know and love is here in full force.

Re:It is TIFF hijacked

[Holi]

Yes because Wikipedia is always 100% accurate. Try here [digitalpreservation.gov], BTW the AC was right, Microsoft worked with Aldus on the development of Tiff.

Only one problem

[sjonke]

All images encoded with Windows Media Photo have a blue cast to them

Cool

[mobby_6kl]

MS got flamed for this on digg, and the few posts which are already here do the same, but I'm not so pessimistic about it.

Jpeg sucks, this should be clear to anyone who tried to compare it [compression.ru] to Jpeg2000, for example. Unfortunately, J2k seems to be stuck, and since most browsers don't support it by default (even the upcoming IE7 and Opera 9), using this format on web is suicide.

So, if this new format performs at about J2k level, and uses less resources to do so, I'm happy MS introduced it. Due to relative suckiness of jpeg, a lot of space and bandwidth is wasted in everything from cameras to online image galleries. If MS gets the licensing right, it could be a very welcome addition to the image compression methods.

Of course, a stupid/evil license can kill either the format, or whoever tries to use it ;)

Image quality ?

[alexhs]

From Wikipedia :

Windows Media Photo processes images at 16x16 macroblocks.
Microsoft claims that Windows Media Photo offers a perceptible image quality comparable to JPEG 2000

If you use blocks, you will get block effects. While JPEG2000 don't use blocks. So I'm sceptical about that image quality claim... It might be true when you take speed rather than size into account, however.

So how are they going to force us to use it?

[linebackn]

My first thought was that there was no way anybody would actually use this format but Micrsoft has enough power to blackmail^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H convince enough web sites or application developers to use this format that eventually everyone would have to have this regardless if they wanted it or not.

And I don't beleive for one second that this is really "open". Microsoft would never do anything unless it benifited them somehow.

pretty pathetic

[m874t232]

Mostly, what this tells you is that Microsoft is confused and doesn't know what they are doing in this area.

First of all, compression really isn't an issue with digital cameras or image storage. Among other things, the fact that most serious photographers store RAW images is a good indication of that.

Second, lumping together JPEG and JPEG 2000 as "JPEG" doesn't make sense; JPEG 2000 already has all the advantages that Windows Media Photo claims, but it's an open standard. Microsoft should implement it, as should electronics manufacturers.

Third, Microsoft is overestimating their market position and significance in the digital imaging market.

I suppose you can't fault them for trying, but this particular attempt at monopolizing the market looks pretty pathetic.

Re:pretty pathetic

[m50d]

First of all, compression really isn't an issue with digital cameras or image storage. Among other things, the fact that most serious photographers store RAW images is a good indication of that.

All that tells you is it isn't an issue for serious photographers. For me as a consumer with my £100 camera and £20 storage card it certainly is an issue

NO, no, a million times NO

[swschrad]

OPEN specifications only, please. it has to be supported on all platforms.

these two ideas, core to the net, means that Microsoft and its eely, oily ways should be barred from submitting the spec.

No EULA needed

[Wee]

it is interesting that the specification requires a click-through agreement to even read it

Not true. Look at the source of the page. You'll see that the "I accept" button is at actually a simple GET request to here [microsoft.com]. If you paste that into your location bar and then click the link on the right hand side of the page that comes up, you get the the spec.

I'm not sure of the legality of direct linking to their .doc file without agreeing to some nonsense EULA, but they put it on the web, so they have to expect a link here and there.

-B

Adoption is the key, so its dangerous

[cyberjessy]

The future is obviously going to be media heavy, with tons of pics/videos all over the place. As such, better media formats are required. No doubt.

But when MS bundles decoders with the OS, it automatically gets a huge installed base. Now how will an open format compete with that, which the users will have to download? The MS format might get adopted even if it is proprietary. Which is very very bad.

jpeg2k has no adoption is for the same reason.

Interestingly, this is where a "platform" like Firefox becomes more important. As a delivery channel, of open formats. If Firefox ever becomes the dominant browser, that will solve a lot of the distribution problems. Of course, the Firefox team will decide what to bundle, but I am sure they are nice people.

Open Arms...

[Avogadros Letter]

I, for one, welcome our 50% smaller, lossy overlords...

click-through agreement

[rs232]

"You may review these Materials only .. to interface with a Microsoft product"

"MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND"

"If .. ownership .. changes, Your right to use these Materials automatically terminates"

"Microsoft may freely use, reproduce, license, distribute, and otherwise commercialize Your Feedback"

"You will not give Microsoft any Feedback (i) that You have reason to believe is subject to any .. intellectual property claim"

"Microsoft has no obligation to maintain the confidentiality .. of Your Feedback"

"You waive any defenses allowing the dispute to be litigated elsewhere"

"If any part of this Agreement is unenforceable, it will be considered modified to the extent necessary to make it enforceable"

from "Windows Media Photo Specification license agreement [microsoft.com].

priorities much?

[tehwebguy]

hey microsoft, why don't you patch ie6 to work with alpha transparent pngs first (i know ie7 is supposed to work with them, but i don't have 4 years to wait until EveryMan(tm) has upgraded).

we have plenty of image formats that work for us, and most of us have broadband anyway.

We already have an alternative...

[l3v1]

...and it's JPEG2000, and this try from MS is nothing but a mimic (integer operations, lossy and lossless, partial decoding, block sizes, bw and color, int and floating point precision, image sizes, xml metadata, you name it).

We don't need cameras supporting an MS image format, no sir, we need cameras supporting state of the art standards in image formats, for which MS brings nothign new with this move.

**shrug** for real

[Ilgaz]

Well, there is JPEG 2000 and its your loss if you don't use it http://www.jpeg.org/jpeg2000/ [jpeg.org]

The amazing, unbelievable thing made me "shrug" is they have the face to use "professional" word. I shouldn't RTFM really.

Professionals use RAW. RAW you hear me Microsoft? Also they use TIFF for transport. That is the established non lossy standard with some weird extensions, file variations. That is also why professional photographers will be the first Blu Ray recorder customers.

Nobody, nobody can dare to lose a PIXEL, single PIXEL. That is how you work in professional World.

Dear BillG if you are reading this: FIRE whoever came with that idea. Even Microsoft does not deserve to be robbed like that.

And people here (at geek sites) joked when Allume managed to come up with a lossless jpeg compressor. The camera manufacturer and memory manufacturer CARTEL insists on using JPEG , that is how you sell people 1 gigabyte memory cards but it is up to customer asking for jpeg 2000 format on equipment they buy.

So, there is still JPEG, one company (one of their interns I heard) managed to compress it by 30% levels and people joked about them. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/ 12/0725217 [slashdot.org]

Here is World's billions of dollars company coming up with a lossy format for PROFESSIONALS. I can only *shrug* sorry.

Please Microsoft, introduce your "format" to professionals who has nothing to do with your businesses and watch them laugh at you.

Even end users know RAW format.

Yeah, Mk...

[ceeam]

New photo format from MS! Yay! I'm sure digicam makers will _gladly_ embrace it after Microsoft fucked them over with FAT patent royalties enforcement.

Re:Yeah, Mk...

[ceeam]

Sure I can:

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp [microsoft.com]

Will we need compression in the future

[Danathar]

Since the use of compression is to compensate for lack of either 1) Storage or 2)Bandwidth I have to wonder how useful having a tighter compression format for pictures would be. Computers are faster, hard drives larger, broadband quicker. I'd like to see better LOSSLESS compression than lossy comrpession.

Licensing should not be a restriction? Try FAT

[massysett]

That from a company that wants to charge license fees [microsoft.com] for FAT? Yeah, right. They might not charge licensing fees now, but if this graphics standard ever gets to be twenty years old, not under active development, and ubiquitous, watch out.

MS Open 'pick your product name or service'

[Locutus]

not agreeing to the license terms on Microsofts site for this results in a web page on something called Microsofts XPS Document format which they claim is an open and cross-platform specification. We all know that MS Cross-Platform means it works across all supported versions of Microsoft Windows but this MS Open xxxxx convention is getting alot of air time these days.

It would be an interesting list to see just how often Microsoft claims one if its products are "open" or names a product/feature with the "open" name...

Microsoft Open Packaging
Microsoft Office Open XML Formats
Microsoft Open License Program
Microsoft Open Volume Licenses
Microsoft Open Academic MS Open License 6.0 Academic Edition
Microsoft Open Database Connectivity ( might be ODBC related and might not count )
Microsoft Open License Value
MICROSOFT OPEN SQL SERVER 2005 ENTERPRISE EDITION
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Open Text ( included since they seem to be VERY close to MS )
Microsoft Open Source Software Lab ( explains why MS Marketing Corp is using 'open' so much )

There's probably much more but wow, I really didn't think it had gone THIS far.

LoB

SAT question

[WhiteWolf666]

1) UNISYS : Microsoft

A) Pitbull : Beelezebub
B) 9mm : Howizter
C) Dog shit : Milwaukee Sewage System
D) All of the above.

Hello new feature, same as the old.

[jandrese]

According to the C|Net article:

Additionally, Microsoft's new image format allows such things as rotating the image without the need to decode it and subsequently encode it again, he said.

Uh, JPEG already does this. Has nobody at C|Net ever heard of jpegtran? Does the MS format allow non 90 degree turns or something?

Re:JPEG 2000

[jacoplane]

JPEG 2000 [wikipedia.org]:

JPEG 2000 is not widely supported in present software due to the perceived danger of software patents on the mathematics of the compression method, this area of mathematics being heavily patented in general. JPEG 2000 is by itself not license-free, but the contributing companies and organizations agreed that licenses for its first part - the core coding system - can be obtained free of charge from all contributors.

So basically, it's free for the moment, but who knows if it'll stay that way.

Re:JPEG 2000

[Rocketship Underpant]

It's well-supported by Apple and OS X.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:People are voting for Microsoft!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I was right there with you up until your final example. When I read, "...I can, for example, edit text files far quicker in Vi than I can in Notepad." I thought to myself, "What?" Obviously a user can download vi, or VIM or some such variant or even a completely different text editor for Windows that will give them the same functionality, of the text editor, that you have. Now there are real benefits to running Linux over Windows. You could have said, "when editing text, I'm edit text more quickly using Vi,