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05.25.06
Microsoft Taking On JPEG
 By Nathan Weinberg
Microsoft has unveiled its new image compression format, called Windows Media Photo, which will be natively supported in Windows Vista and upgrades to XP.
WM Photo features 24:1 compression while retaining far more detail than JPEG or JPEG 2000 formats. Microsoft is shooting to have higher quality than typical digital cameras while at a 12:1 level (most cameras use 6:1, so that's a very good thing).
The format also has advanced features, including processing to only show part of the image to shrink it, and rotating without re-encoding the image.
The new image format was received with cautious enthusiasm by some of the WinHEC attendees. Ralf Mueller, an application planner at mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson, said he would look into the new format just as his company looked into supporting Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video.
"Considering our development cycle, I could not see us supporting Windows Media Photo before 2008," Mueller said.
Yet, success will depend on adoption, Wells said. 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.
Microsoft has finished the first official version of the "porting kit" software needed to build support for Windows Media Photo into devices and platforms other than Windows. It should be available soon, Crow said.
Licensing details for the technology are still being ironed out. These could be a concern, Crow acknowledged, but "the philosophy has been that licensing should not be a restriction" to adoption, he said.
I gotta say, even if the format was terrible, I'm delighted to see Microsoft do this. There is no conceivable reason image compression should stay the same, no more than video or audio codecs should. Microsoft pushing a new format invites development and improvement, and hopefully everyone will win in the end.
Here's what I want to know: Are we going to get Windows Media Photo for Web? Right now, for websites concerned with bandwidth, there's a lot of improvement needed for browser-served images. I'd like Microsoft to optimize the lower end of the codec for web pages, saving every possible bit, and doing a much better job than JPEG/GIF/PNG are doing. Just look at how poorly modern image compression handles Windows Vista screenshots, and you'll see what I mean.
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And if Microsoft is smart, it'll realize that owning a popular media format is more important than making money off of it, since adoption of Windows Media Photo will likely help calm people who are psychologically averse to using Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video files. Give away a lifetime non-commercial license of WM Photo for free to Apple and Adobe, please!
WLMD can read email from multiple accounts, access Newsgroups and Active Directories, and read RSS syndication feeds. RSS feeds come from the common feed list, so you can subscribe in Internet Explorer 7, and they will show up in Live Mail Desktop.
Viewing mail in WLMD is similar to Outlook. You get the folder view on the left, and the rest of the screen contains a list of mail messages and a preview of them. Unlike Outlook Express, you can position the preview to the right of the mail list, a very popular Outlook view. Another Outlook feature is that you can flag messages.
Hitting the Contacts link in the lower left-hand corner launches Windows Live Messenger. WLMD shares security zones and connection preferences with Internet Explorer, although it defaults to the more secure Restricted Sites Zone. It contains a spell checker, and is ad-supported.
Anything you are reading, you can click Actions > Blog It to post about it in your MSN Space. There are also inactive options to make voice and video calls.
This isn't a review. WLMD hasn't been released, and this leak likely will just piss off the development team. From what I've been told, the interface looks a lot prettier (and similar to that in Windows Live Messenger) in the more recent builds given to beta testers.
Still, based on what little I've seen here, a lot of people are going to download this program. Basically, anyone who still uses Outlook Express is going to want to upgrade, even with the advertising.
About the Author:
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines. |
