Microsoft's HD Photo

[f1sh3r]

i was doing some reading this morning and came across HD Photo (wiki)

Format Comparisons (wiki)

from microsoft.com
HD Photo, also known as Windows Media Photo, is a new file format for continuous-tone still images that surpasses the limitations of existing image formats. HD Photo supports a wide range of features, including:
*Multiple color formats for display or print
*Fixed or floating point high dynamic range, wide gamut 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

HD Photo delivers a lightweight, high performance algorithm with a small memory footprint that enables practical, in-device encoding and decoding. HD Photo delivers image quality that is comparable to JPEG-2000 and more than twice the quality of JPEG.

ive never shot in RAW and i dislike dealing with .tiff as it seems support is spotty. can jpeg be replaced? should it be? would you use HD Photo?

 

[Aharami]

looks promising. but i dont see most cameras changing from jpeg anytime soon. most people are happy with jpegs and its obvious that camera manufacturers are simply content with making the base consumer happy (higher and higher megapixel race while sacrificing picture quality). So as long as the common man doesnt want/know about a better format than jpegs, camera manufacturers wont make the switch as it will only cost them more money in R&D.

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: Aharami
looks promising. but i dont see most cameras changing from jpeg anytime soon. most people are happy with jpegs and its obvious that camera manufacturers are simply content with making the base consumer happy (higher and higher megapixel race while sacrificing picture quality). So as long as the common man doesnt want/know about a better format than jpegs, camera manufacturers wont make the switch as it will only cost them more money in R&D.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I have seen countless people with the XTi / D40 / D80 / Alpha / k100d with kit lenses shooting in auto. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems many people dont care about (or know how to properly use) the additional features of a dSLR. Most people (~85%+) are happy with jpegs and dont need RAW.

 

[magomago]

so as long as its an open format and nothing is "biased" towards microsoft in the sense of things ONLY working for windows, by all means why not ^^

 

[dug777]

I'm quite happy with RAW

 

[ProviaFan]

For original archival needs, I'd never switch from RAW to anything else, especially a format backed by Microsoft. However, if it were to become popular, I'd use it where appropriate for output. I don't think that will happen, because JPEG is "good enough" that there's no great incentive or demand (as other have said) for manufacturers of hardware to switch.

 

[IeraseU]

No thanks. Raw and .jpg for me. If we were going to a universal format, then the one I would favor would be Adobe's DNG.

 

[NaOH]

RAW ===> JPEG on computer >>>> *

 

[zephyrprime]

Or we could just use jpeg2000 which has most of these benefits. This is just an attempt by Microsoft to pull a "Sony" with the introduction of a proprietary file format.

 

[Deadtrees]

Why do some you of compare this HD Photo to RAW?
Comparing it to RAW would be nonsense as RAW is a data file not a picture file.
If you were to compare, compare it with 'picture' formats such as jpeg, jpeg 2000, tiff and so on.

Anyway, as some of major companies started utilizing 14bit image processing in RAW format,
HD Jpeg sounds quite promising.

 

[91TTZ]

Let's be honest here. Is it really any better than jpeg, or is it just some new proprietary format designed to ensure DRM?

 

[episodic]

Anyone remember jpeg2000? Why didn't it catch on? O yea, propriety?

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: episodic
Anyone remember jpeg2000? Why didn't it catch on? O yea, propriety?

It's not proprietary. It's just hard to beat jpg.

 

[gsellis]

I like it. The still side has been too stagnant lately and needs to start catching up to how fast cameras are moving forward along with computing technology. At minimum, it will kick start some folks that have been doing just enough to get by.

Now we need a "RED Cinema" for the still side.