I just love making those "XYZ-killer" titles, though I suspect you readers tire of it. Anyhow, at Microsoft's WinHEC conference on Wednesday it
showed off Windows Media Photo, a new file format intended to displace JPEG. Though the CNet article isn't especially specific, Microsoft had all kinds of good things to say about its new baby, including how it can achieve twice the compression at the same quality as JPEG. The sticking point, of course, is the licensing. Windows Media Photo was created by the same team that built Windows Media Video and Audio, which does not suggest very open licensing terms, but Microsoft's Bill Crow says, "the philosophy has been that licensing should not be a restriction" to its adoption. I'd love to see a new image format with superior features, but we learned our lession from JPEG and GIF's patent issues, so that better be one unrestrictive license if Microsoft wants WMP to go anywhere. At any rate, even in the best case it will be years before it sees any widespread adoption. If you like technical documentation, Microsoft has the file format specifications
available on its web site, and Microsoft intends to release software for integrating WMP into hardware and software soon.
Tags: fileformat, jpeg, licensing, microsoft, photo, photography, windowsmedia, windowsmediaphoto, wmp
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Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsFabuloMay 26th 2006 5:07PM
I like your illustration. For a moment I thought this is an old school looking digital camera :)
As long as manufacturers are wise and give me a choice between format. Kind of like my wma enabled mp3 player that also plays plain mp3...
This was also the claim of wma over mp3: better sound quality at 1/2 the rate.
Personally, I favor open, unpatented standards.
Then again, the new picture format may one day come in drm flavor, rooted in the trusted computing thing, so even YOUR pictures won't belong to you ... (insert evil sounding laugh: heeeeehehehehehe)
SamMay 27th 2006 5:31AM
I can't wait for DRM'd photos. Yipee.
MikeMay 27th 2006 9:43AM
Oh, boy! Another M/S product -- another cracking opportunity!
AdamMay 28th 2006 4:58AM
DRM for photos won't happen. Pictures are very different from movies and music, in which most content is created for profit and there is very little (comparitivly) in the way of individual content. With photos, I'd wager that the ration of personal versus commercial images is somewhere on the order of 10000 to 1. Probably a lot more, actually. Commercial photography is so small that DRM just doesn't make sense.
As for the WMA comparison, listen to a 64kbps WMA and then the same song as a 64kbps mp3. There's a huge difference. All things being equal, I'd rather use ogg vorbis, but WMA is a perfectly acceptable, highly versatile format and easily supperior to mp3.
If this new photo format ends up being to jpeg what WMA is to mp3, I'd say it will be a welcome addition and I will activly look for cameras that support it the next time I buy.
hitkaiserMay 28th 2006 5:58AM
I welcome a replacement for JPEG since its ageing so badly, however, I am uneasy with Microsoft making it!
BrennanMay 28th 2006 6:48PM
Oh joy, another proprietary image format! I'm really looking forward to the day when this gets wide enough acceptance that Microsoft can start demanding royalties from every software maker who want to support it.
Dilbert99May 29th 2006 4:34AM
Whats wrong with PNG?!
(other than that MS can understand how to show transparency)
Do we really need yet another image format?
AndreasMay 29th 2006 10:57AM
I sometimes try out JPEG2000. It seems really amazing, and it even works with transparency. It's a little too heavy on the processor though. PNG is a great format, but it would be even greater if it also allowed JPEG compression.. Perhaps Microsoft learns how to handle transparency when Vista comes out?
I can see future commercial web sites using DRM images all over their sites... and with this thing being pre installed in Vista... hm.. there will soon be platform to try it on.
Me personally... I never trust Microsoft's formats.
They just usually stink is why.
AndersMay 30th 2006 7:21AM
JPEG patents revoked?
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060526105754880