Microsoft has released details of a new file format for continuous-tone still images that it claims ‘surpasses the limitations of existing image formats’.

 

May 27, 2006: Microsoft has released details of a new file format for continuous-tone still images that it claims ‘surpasses the limitations of existing image formats’.

Seen as a replacement for JPEG in the forthcoming Windows Vista operating system, Windows Media Photo promises to deliver ‘a lightweight, high performance algorithm with a small memory footprint that enables practical, in-device encoding and decoding’. Features of the new format include:
– Support for multiple colour formats for display or print;
– Fixed or floating point high dynamic range image encoding;
– Lossless or high quality lossy compression;
– Extremely efficient decoding for multiple resolutions and sub-regions;
– Minimal overhead for format conversion or transformations during decode.
Whether the new format will succeed or fail is debatable, given the current penetration of JPEG, which is effectively the default file format for all digital imaging. Attempts to introduce an improved version of JPEG, known as JPEG 2000, failed due to issues with patents and royalties. However, if Forgent’s claims on the patent underlying JPEG compression succeed, Windows Media Photo may have a chance – as long as it’s free. However, the majority of professional photographers (and serious enthusiasts) prefer shooting raw files and converting them to TIFF format, which reduces the relevance of JPEG to this critical market sector.

A report from CNet says licensing details for the new format are still being ironed out, although Microsoft has completed the first official version of the “porting kit” software needed to build support for Windows Media Photo into devices and platforms other than Windows. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphoto.mspx.