Microsoft Corp. will soon submit to an international standards organization a new photo format that offers higher-quality images with better compression, the company said today.The format, HD Photo -- recently renamed from Windows Media Photo -- is taking aim at the JPEG format, a 15-year-old technology widely used in digital cameras and image applications. Both formats take images and use compression to make the file sizes smaller so more photos can fit on a memory card. During compression, however, the quality of the photo tends to degrade.
Microsoft said HD Photo's lightweight algorithm causes less damage to photos during compression, with higher-quality images that are half the size of a JPEG. The format can also accommodate "lossless" and "lossy" compression, two methods of compressing photo data with different effects on image quality. Microsoft said adjustments can be made to color balance and exposure settings that won't discard or truncate data that occurs with other bit-map formats.
View: Full Article @ Computer World
Microsoft said HD Photo's lightweight algorithm causes less damage to photos during compression, with higher-quality images that are half the size of a JPEG. The format can also accommodate "lossless" and "lossy" compression, two methods of compressing photo data with different effects on image quality. Microsoft said adjustments can be made to color balance and exposure settings that won't discard or truncate data that occurs with other bit-map formats.
View: Full Article @ Computer World
And yeah, that would be confusing. HDP for the win now I guess.
JPEG is still best for photos, maybe this HD photo format will spell the end for it.
I have serious reservations in using HDP ever...
I have serious reservations in using HDP ever...
why? because it's a microsoft format? stop using TIFF then
I have serious reservations in using HDP ever...
why? because it's a microsoft format? stop using TIFF then
So the person hates it simply because it's made by Microsoft? Where exactly did you get that from reading the post?
Sounds to me the person just prefers the more high quality formats. Take your comment and go troll elsewhere.
Last edited by NightmarE D on 09 Mar 2007 - 13:11
I have serious reservations in using HDP ever...
why? because it's a microsoft format? stop using TIFF then
probably because compatibility will not be as good. as a professional you don't mind RAW taking up a whole crapload of space, since you can afford enough memory.
but for me as hobby-photographer this one will be the best solution
Glassed Silver:mac
I have serious reservations in using HDP ever...
why? because it's a microsoft format? stop using TIFF then
So the person hates it simply because it's made by Microsoft? Where exactly did you get that from reading the post?
Sounds to me the person just prefers the more high quality formats. Take your comment and go troll elsewhere.
i asked him why, he cannot judge a format that doesn't exist yet, so that was a valid question, if you call that trolling you're obviously a troll yourself
Not really. Professionals are going to continue to use those formats until they find one that's of use to them. And I have no clue where you got the idea that he won't use it because it's "from Microsoft", but you're obviously jumping to conclusions, and also trying to take a shot at him as if he's an "anti-MS" nut.
Your question though maybe was valid but the way you expressed it was ill-mannered.
sounds good although only way i would be for it is if it can be used on pretty much anything without crappy royalty fee's etc... cause i need webbrowsers and all sorts of stuff to be able to use it like jpeg is today otherwise the new format will suck.... but half the file size with same quality or same file size with 2 times the quality sounds nice as i dont see any drawbacks from that perspective
Hopefully this takes over everything, as I feel quality and size currently don't go together well.
Feel free to flame me with the usual tripe...
this seems hella interesting.
finally a better method.
some cams really tend to make a very lossy compression...
would be awesome since i wouldnt have to get a RAW cam, since this format supports both, lossy and non-lossy compression.
now lets just see cams coming out and see how the battery life will be affected, i guess it wont be a huge deal.
i hope at least
Glassed Silver:mac
It would be nice but I cant see this being in mainstread cams for a fair while, at least a year depending how quick it passes the standards boards.
It would be nice but I cant see this being in mainstread cams for a fair while, at least a year depending how quick it passes the standards boards.
youre right... and actually seeing some fun time coming soon, id still go with my dad's 5MP HP one which is awesome...
i can wait 1 year, thats no prob, i could financiate it in a year (earliest) anyways... theres lots of stuff to be bought and then again i also want a camcorder which will make my wallet a bit lighter as well...
Glassed Silver:mac
It would be nice but I cant see this being in mainstread cams for a fair while, at least a year depending how quick it passes the standards boards.
Ummm support for Wireless N came REALLY fast. Long, long before the standard was actually approved *mumbles* draft n products *mumbles*
Draft-N products were around a pretty long while before the standard was approved. Support for that was picked up really fast... usually is with new technology for the "buzz-word" type guys out there. Lots of money coming from them.
People will have reservations about using it at first in general desktop usage - but Digital Cam manu's will be very quick to adopt it if this is accurate, forcing people to use it wherever possible.
I bet there will be support for it on all important platforms, they couldnt establish it otherwise that well...
meaning Mac/*nix/win/portable OS... dont mind... the only thing you might be affraid of is support for legacy software like Win 2000, but they better support that as well if theyre clever.
Glassed Silver:mac
It seems like MS has decided to fight OSS (and any other potential competitor, while they're at it) by releasing propietary formats and expecting them to become standards, leaving OSS out of the loop with the licenses those "standards" are distributed under.
While that's probably not the only motivation behind the development of this image format, it's still something to be concerned about. Last thing we need is another doc-style mess.
No, it certainly does not.
when the standard is finalized, and probably even now, anyone is free to make their own HDC interpreter/codec code according to the specs of HDP.
If that is true, then this format will go the way of AOL's crap ART format. Mozilla, Opera and Apple would take the attitude of "couldn't care less", so won't consider putting it near web browsers (which is where most people would use JPEG). All the "I'd use it for my camera shots" mean nothing if noone (apart from a Microsoft product) will display it.
PNG came about as a direct result of the stupid Unisys patent (now expired, go make GIFs all you like) and only recently has Microsoft allowed this format to be able to be displayed in IE. Even then it isn't full support.
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38641
It doesn't have such a totally misleading title like this one either.
if you want to hold on to an aged, clearly lacking technology, go ahead. And your comparison between mp3 and wma has nothing to do with jpeg and hd photo
Technology should indeed move forward, but not at any price, specially when we already have perfectly valid free alternatives like OpenEXR.
Isn't mp4 just a container? AFAIK you can still put mp3 inside a mp4 container.
Yeah, he probably means AAC in a mp4 container or something like that.
same here!
New devices supporting a new format, would cost more simply because newer chips would have to be installed! The same way the ipod has a chip that specifically decodes mp3,aac and such formats, and you can install linux and decode ogg but it will drain your battery fast
Sorry mom.
I dont think that i will use microsoft new format unless i really need it,
Last edited by TRC on 09 Mar 2007 - 18:59
Or, imagine having HD movies whose picture is degraded intentionally if you're not using DRM-enabled monitors.
Oh wait, Vista already has that...
I can see that too. If you're trying to view a HD photo you don't have a license for, the picture quality will be degraded so it looks like something the dog chewed out
They're already doing this with video in Vista, so applying it to photos would be the next logical step. As it doesn't work with current image formats, they need to come up with a new format for this, that's what HD Photo is for.
and with a lot of DRM in it
HD Photo Specification Download
And it's even lossless if needed.
And so what if its a standard designed by Microsoft.
The word is royalties, and no they won't have to pay them.
It also doesn't mean Windows only. But think whatever you want to think.
It's not Windows, that would be stupid since the web isn't Windows only either. It's being submitted as an open standard.
Last edited by TRC on 09 Mar 2007 - 19:33
Yeap, Microsoft really could sell Ice to Eskimos. They'd call it Microsoft Ice 2009 and claim it has a load of new features that regular, old, tired Ice doesn't have and that everyone needs. Like enhanced freezing, and cool new coolness features. And then they'd charge you $40 a bag for it and claim that that's a fair price.
They suck, they just want to push another MS-owned format on us so they can charge us all to use it, the same crap they pulled with the FAT file system and which the JPEG group themselves and CompuServe have all tried in the past. For god's sake why can't people just use PNG, an open format that AFAIK NOBODY owns and supports every possible format, feature, function that you could ever possibly want, and will never be forcefully obsoleted, and you won't ever be sued for using them... PNG PNG PNG PNG!
Anyways, Windows Media format has been around for how many years and still hasn't grabbed itself more than a fraction of the market share, maybe one of the bigger fractions but still, MPG and AVI, even QuickTime and RealAudio are still competitors. I think we'll just end up with another competing format which we have to support.
Stupid MS.
HD Photo will have better quality than JPEG at a smaller file size. I can't object to that.
Oh and it bothers me so much that my software will support more than one format. That's sooo terrible!
"they just want to push another MS-owned format on us so they can charge us all to use it"
We already know that HD Photo is royalty free, no need to try and spread anti-MS FUD and hysteria.
"Anyways, Windows Media format has been around for how many years and still hasn't grabbed itself more than a fraction of the market share"
Yeah, poor VC-1 just never went anywhere did it? As for WMA that is a closed format, no comparison here.
The ability to save much higher quality images for the same file size will be great for websites and such.
For those of you wanting to see the format in action check out:
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
They are using the new format for the photo collections. And for all the people who say MS isn't innovative, you can't tell me Photosynth isn't innovative. It's by far one of the coolest forms of viewing photos seen to date.
How many projects does it take to make them innovative then? Apparently there is a set number? There is nothing out there that allows you to interact with photos in such a rich way as photoshynth, I'd definatly call that innovative no matter how old it may be. Innovation doesn't have to be some big splashy public thing, which is what so many feel is a requirement for something being innovative.
I'd be highly willing to bet there are a lot of innoavative things MS does that the public doesn't know about in projects that either havn't shipped and even in products that have.
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