Microsoft shows off JPEG rival
Found on CNet News on Thursday, 25 May 2006
If it is up to Microsoft, the omnipresent JPEG image format will be replaced by Windows Media Photo.
Windows Media Photo will be supported in Windows Vista and also be made available for Windows XP, Bill Crow, program manager for Windows Media Photo, said in a presentation.
Typically digital cameras today use 6:1 compression, Crow said. Windows Media Photo should offer better pictures at double that level, he said. "We can do it in half the size of a JPEG file."
Microsoft will need to get players such as Adobe Systems and Apple Computer on board to win over the graphics professionals, he noted. A major unknown is licensing, which Microsoft has not yet addressed. "Licensing can kill this," Wells said.
This comes from the same people who developed wma and wmv as alternatives to mp3 and divx/xvid. There's a tiny aspect that obviously wasn't addressed at that presentation: DRM. The audio and video format from MS support DRM, so chances are very high that their image format will have it included too. Personally, I don't want some randomly collected images from the Internet lock up suddenly, forcing me to upgrade and pay up. Besides, if it'd be up to MS, everything would be replaced with their products.