New JPEG format: Windows Media Photo
Last Wednesday Microsoft showed their new image format at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. It is called Windows Media Photo and will be supported in Windows Vista. Bill Crow, program manager for Windows Media Photo, said in a presentation that “one of the biggest reasons people upgrade their PCs is digital photos”(?) He was noting that Microsoft has been in contact with printer makers, digital camera companies and other unnamed industry partners while working on Windows Media Photo. Microsoft touts managing “digital memories” as one of the key attributes of Vista.
Crow claims the new format has a very high compression level that can result in half the size of a JPEG file.
Not only does compression save storage space, which is especially important for devices such as cell phones and digital cameras, a smaller file can also print faster, transfer faster and help conserve battery life on devices, Crow said. “Making a file that is smaller has all kinds of benefits.”… 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.
We will have to wait and see how this turns out but Windows Media Photo (WMP) was developed by the same people who worked on Windows Media Video (WMV) and Audio (WMA), so it should be rather good!
The format will also be made available for Windows XP (via zdnet.com).
