News Microsoft takes on JPEG with Windows Media Photo

Why? There are enough formats out there, we don't need any more. And I bet they don't let linux join in the fun

 

they will never win any of these 2 format wars. jpg is so well embedded in literally every single website in existence

 

There are many other web formatted file formats besides jpeg that are integrated into the web currently.

3rd party apps wont have a problem adding microsoft's wdp extention as long as it is shown that it actually does what it says. Anybody who uses Photoshop knows all the file formats serve a specific purpose so logically if wdp comes along with great quality and compression they're going to eventually add it.

EQC - Every page I've ever gone to works perfectly with firefox. You must have some settings messed up or something.

My only complaint is that all of Microsoft's stuff has an extention of .w* ... It's gonna start getting damn confusing if they just keep adding on more and more.

I agree with ch424. Personally I'm not into WMA but there are many good encoders out there that are better than mp3. Those who are hardcore into quality will either go with MPC, OGG, or AAC. Same logic with wdp.

Just my two cents.

 

So people are already working on improved formats to replace .JPG, and if MS throw their weight (and browser) behind one it will take off. As for .JPG being 'open standard',

On the good side,

See Wikipedia.

 

Other OS's usually have some place to find a w32codecs package for decoding WMV, but they're hit-and-miss at best.

MS is just trying to oust Linux and other alternative operating systems, as they've always tried.

Whoever said "IE6 won't render these properly" is most likely right, but bear in mind 2 things:
1) they can issue a patch to IE6 users to have it render these. They can make it only available to Windows Genuine Advantage people [lame]
2) Or they can not, and then force many people to use their IE7, which undoubtedly will run slower, thus forcing them to upgrade their computers and buy Vista [more lame]

the rest of the non-microsoft world will probably figure out the format eventually, but this is just a bad move overall.

Whoever said this is a format war, it isn't quite. Windows will still be compatible with jpeg (I don't think they're that stupid) and any sane web developers won't use this new format if they want to have sites that can be viewed by the world using IE6/other operating systems

Other stupid gimmicks:
-<hitman012> make it the default save option in Vista's Paint...
[etc]

 

Right, the thing is that pisses me off with alot of people is that they start moaning about the whole "microsoft wants to have monoply on the market" Well so what? Who gives a crap? The thing is, is that microsoft started out the same as everyother buisiness, just a crappy company with 4 or 5 graduates who eventually grew to become a massive multi-billion dollar company, did they have it easy? Hell no! They had some damn stiff competition against IBM! But does any one care about the amount of work they put in, to be as big as apple or IBM? No they dont!

And another thing that really gets to me, why do people bitch and whine about how crappy windows is? If you dont like it there plenty of other OS' out there to use! Or you if think you can do any better, then please try! No one is stopping you from developing your own os!

So until your in a position where your earning millions an hour, because you created a damn good program which help's millions of people go about there daily buisiness, it would be wise to shut the hell up.

 

Well, actually, there aren't many if you want to use games and apps which are launched for Windows. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to Microsoft, if it wasnt for them computers would be very different. But, when was the last time they launched a truly innovative OS which worked well out of the box? They have their hands in too many cookie jars. IMHO they should stick to what they do best and let other companies do the same.

- ed out

 

we are teh macrosoft.
all your file formats will be ours.
resistance is possible but we think the general public is too stupid to try.

 

Well its only a matter of time. I wondered how long it would be before microsoft go for the images.

Well sorry MS my camera does Jpeg and not WMP, its such a shame lol

Microsoft is a hungry organisation and just after everyone’s money in a way. They wont be satisfied until they have world domination. Its just a matter of time

 

How is it bad? Progress it progress. If I can have the same photos I have now, but better compression+quality, or compressed 2.5times lossless, where is the issue?

People are getting sidetracked with the IE issue. IMO this is a stupid argument. As you pointed out, web developers aren't going to use graphics that 99% of their visitors won't be able to render.

Oh and if they do make it default in Paint, who cares. If it's all it's cracked up to be (good compression, not as lossy as JPEG) then where is the problem? If you want want it in another format you can always change it. More seriously though, who still uses Paint?

What format war? Talk about blowing things out of proportion.

Are GIFs obsolete with JPEGs around? Are JPEGs obsolete with PNGs around? Whatever happened to BMPs? Every format still has its use, you're not going to find a web page making heavy use of bitmaps and you're not going to find digital cameras saving directly as gifs. Any change does come about because of this it wont be because of any 'format war', it'll be because it's a superior for one thing or another.


If Google had released something similar people would be jumping for joy. As it's Microsoft people feel the need to bash it. Get over it.

 

If somebody at MS has come up with a format that offers a "perceptible image quality comparable to JPEG 2000 with computational and memory performance more closely comparable to JPEG and delivers a lossy compressed image of better perceptive quality than JPEG at less than half the file size" then they are doing it bestest. Let market competition work its way.

So you don't see twice as many (and better quality) images in the same storage space as a useful feature for future cameras?

MS are not trying to oust JPEG, that's already on the way out, everybody agrees it's past its sell-by date, plenty of room for improvement. They're out to have the best replacement - to beat JPEG 2000 and any others that try for the crown.

 

g0g0g0g0g0g0 microsoft!!!

 

Yep....microsoft also claimed that vista would have been released first quarter of 2006 at some point....my hopes aren't all that high...

 

After I saw your post, I tried my hardest to find a page I could send as an example...but I couldn't. Which is strange. I did find a few that would hang-up firefox for a few seconds when trying to close a tab with an embedded wmv...but those were few and far between, and are probably a bug with whatever java or something they used to embed. And I couldn't find the site that used to make all firefox users download the videos (they actually had text giving instructions for firefox...and the embedded wmv wouldn't even try to play but would display a message about not working in firefox if you tried to play it)...so maybe the problem isn't an issue anymore and my memories aren't as recent as I thought. Anybody else remember any issues with firefox and embedded wmv's?

I still use paint! If I'm right in my estimations, just about everybody has a bootleg of Adobe Photoshop...but I gave up on mine a while ago as my needs are simple...I don't even edit photos...I just use paint when I need to make schematics and simple drawings and stuff for papers...and it does just fine for that. I've thought about GIMP or Paint.net or some other free package, and even have the install files...but the effort of learning just isn't worth it until paint doesn't work for me anymore (ie: until I need more features). That being said, I'd be pissed off if the figures I made in paint couldn't be pulled into Latex or OpenOffice or whatever I want to use and if the conversion process from WMP to another file format required anything more than minimal effort. Of course, I wouldn't expect Microsoft to drop the JPEG option out of paint and force only their formats....they'd have to at least keep the Bitmap option I think.

 

I also use paint. Works well for quick copy and pasting of desktop and other random screenshots that you need to e-mail or send over AIM. Sorry but for showing a friend my desktop im not going to spend the time to load photoshop just to paste and save for better quality, lol. Dont like my friends that much - heh.

 

I feel for you guys still using Paint - I find it such a mission to do anything in - even cropping images is much harder than it needs to be. But the one main reason why I don't like it is the lack of control over output.

You have no say in how much compression is applied and I always find the resultant files are relatively huge, making them a poor choice for most things web based (obvisouly not that much of a problem if you're just showing stuff to a few mates.

Anyway, I am moving off topic here. My comment about Paint users was said in some jest. My real argument was that Paint will still offer other formats you can save in. Sure WMP may be first choice, but is it really that hard to select something else from a drop down box? Plus, if you're just showing stuff to friends, WMP will be a better choice anyway as compatability is not an issue and the file size will be that much smaller.

On the finding a page that FF doesn't like front... that "spot the gif-erence" site referenced in GD doesn't play ball to well. When I close the page it takes a second of two to do anything - I blame the embedded music.

 

So, why can't they just make it an open standard like PNG? How will it benifit them otherwise?

 

Er how did you read that from what i said. That comment is ilrelevant to mine as my camera will never capture images and save in wmp format as its built for jpeg.

I didnt say at all that, better images are not going to be useful in future cameras. I was just saying my camera is not using jpeg and isnt part of MS dominination (yet). Its a new camera and I wont be replacing it for another 3 years like my last one. So by then I would asume that there maybe something better than MS format in 3 years.

Have you actualy seen an image in MS format. Just because on paper its supposed to be better quality. Until you actually see it its not.

 

JPEG make money from it, noone complains.

AFAIK PNG is free as it is based on the deflate compression algorithm (same as winzip et al) which is based on Huffman coding and the LZ77 algorithm, and with these not being patented, no license is required.

If you made a good compression algorithm I'm sure you'd patent it. Even standards like MP3 are patented and software companies have to buy a license to use it.

As such I don't see how licensing out the WMP standard is going to be any different to any other rival format, or even the formats used in the multimedia industry.

Microsoft will not be the only ones benefiting from this, we will in terms of a [potentially] better file format. No one is going to force you to use it and at the end of the day more choice is a good thing.

I still feel people are slating this format just because it's Microsoft... sigh

 

Forgent have had their patent tossed out since they didn't bother to inform the US Patent Office of all the prior art.