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JPEG2000 Coming Soon
Sonny writes "In a few months time, internet users will be able to make use of the JPEG2000 standard which, its developers claim, enables web graphics to be downloaded much faster than is currently possible. This will not only make graphics-heavy web pages easier to download, it will also preserve image quality. The JPEG standard compresses image files which are then transmitted across the web faster than uncompressed files. Now, researchers at universities around the world have developed JPEG2000, the next-generation image-compression technology under the auspices of the International Standards Organisation. It is the first major upgrade of the standard since it first appeared in the early '90s. What is also important about the technology is its ability to send files without loss of data, which is not the case with current JPEG files. To take advantage of a JPEG2000, web browsers will need a Plug-In for either Internet Explorer or Netscape browsers. These free plug-in's are expected to be available later this year. The extension for the new files will be ".jp2"."
If we aren't all using PNG right now, there's no way we're gonna be using jp2
I think we're just stuck with jpeg and gif for about the next 5-10 years, until browsers in general get reinvented.
Why .jp2??? Why not .jpeg2. This legacy DOS naming convention drives me nuts. Not even Windows is crappy enough to still require 8.3 filenames.
I still cringe when I see default.htm. It's a frickin' html file, name it properly.
-Ben
I don't want to be a nay-sayer in any way, but I predict that this will catch on about as quickly as PNGs replacing GIFs. Most professional quality sites still use GIFs instead of PNG, even though tools such as Adobe's Imageready and Macromedia's Fireworks have supported the PNG format alongside GIFs for a while now AND most major browsers support PNGs natively (which wasn't the case not too long ago, with IE4, I believe).
.jp2 format doesn't require a plugin for 99% of the browsers out there, it won't be widely used, IMHO. Of course, I could be wrong and the .jp2 format might not even be meant for wide-spread adoption, and mainly for particular niche uses (such as viewing hubble images or replacing the need for lossless TIFFs).
Until the
Just my $0.02.
I remember a similar promise made about LZW compression in the GIF standard by Compuserve. What is to stop these companies from requiring license fees at some arbitrary point in the future once the technology is widely used?
Additionally, there doesn't seem to be very much due dilligence performed in regards to other patents over the techniques utilized in the standard. Even if all of the known patents are licensed royalty-free, there exists the very real possiblity that a submarine patent will be exposed, after the standard is widely utilized, of course.
Of course, this won't matter once all of our PCs are replaced with sealed, SSSCA-compliant, government issued "convergence appliances"... :-)
You have an interesting point--bandwidth is getting more dear, now that the pyramid-scheme banner advertising revenue outfits have been going tits-up. However, I just don't see most website owners risking their livelihoods by implementing an image format which most of their customers, plugins or no, may not be able to read--particularly since so much of web layout is done using images these days instead of text.
Think about it--how many users are set to automatically download plugins as needed? Almost none because of security reasons. herefore, some active decision is needed on behalf of the user to actually install the plugin or not. What will be the user's reaction if he goes to the site of WidgetCo, doesn't know what to do with this dialogue box about installing stuff (especially if he's been told be friends or company that installing strange software can be dangerous, or if he's been molested by the likes of CometCursor), says "No", and gets a page of big X's where all the buttons and banners should be? Well, it might well be to go to the site of WidgetBiz instead to get his widgets there.
This is why I really don't see JPEG2k taking off. It's a risk most companies won't take--you don't want your users not being able to use your site. Look how long it took Flash to become as common as it is today--many years, and then only because it started shipping by default with Windows.
I have no doubt that IE7 will have JPEG2k support--poor and half-hearted support. As with most Microsoft products it'll probably take the until the second major release to get it right, so let's say IE8 will have fully implemented JPEG2k support out-of-the-box. How many years will it be until that's out? And how much further along will available bandwidth be by then?
I could well be wrong, but I just don't see this taking off. Unlike Flash did, it doesn't bring anything spectacularly new to the table--a few people have been talking about the visual effects you can get using wavelet images, but those same effects are common (if poorly implemented) Flash effects today, in addition to the many other effects Flash does. So that leaves us with the better compression over JPEG as its big marketing point...and I just don't see that being enough to get website owners to risk alienating end users. So *at least* until great JPEG2k support ships with IE out of the box, and that version of IE is common, I don't see JPEG2k going anywhere except into some niche markets.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus