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May 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft takes aim at JPEG
Microsoft is setting its sights on the JPEG imaging standard with its own Windows Media Photo, reports Microsoft Watcher Mary Jo Foley.
Microsoft introduced the spec at WinHEC this week, touting its ability to "allow users to correct, render and print photos in half the size a comparable JPEG requires."
Prima facie improvement aside, too bad Microsoft did not turn its interest to ODF rather than JPEG. So, could this be ready any other way than a new land grab that will lock people into Microsoft's products at some point?
PC World puts the big question mark out there: "For Windows Media Photo to make sense, it needs to be supported by cameras, printers, photo software, browsers, and an array of other devices and applications that create, edit, manage, or simply display photos. Does Microsoft plan to invest immense amounts of energy in convincing a gazillion third parties to implement it? Does it see Windows Media Photo as replacing JPEG, or providing an alternative? (Right now, you'd be nuts to buy a camera which only captured images in WMP; one that provided it as an option might be intriguing.)
Check out the full spec here and let us know what you think. (And, what ever happened to PNG?)
Posted by Mike Barton on May 26, 2006 03:45 PM
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Yeah!
Where is PNG?
I never want to be locked into any Microsoft file format... PERIOD!! Everything I do now, I always go for the open source format. I need that freedom.
But that is just my 2cents....
Louis
Posted by: louish at May 29, 2006 01:08 PMToo bad like Microsoft you passed on the whole topic of JPEG2000 which is:
a)adopted by all the major Graphic players including Adobe , Corel, Canon, Sony, Ulead and dozens of others right now and for the past 3-4 years
b)JPEG2000 has performance for compression and control of image quality/compression equal to or better than WMP.
The better question to ask Microsoft is why did it pass on a better standard for 3-4 years. Is Microsoft starting to rely on "just good enough or a tie, means we win" given its monopoly power.
Only time will tell - but on first run through, that appears to be the case.
The problem is that a company called Forgent is suing tons of company's, inclusing MS, Apple, etc. Basically everyone that uses JPEG claiming that they own patents and need to pay up. Can't blame MS for taking this step.
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