Microsoft's HD Photo to Become JPEG Standard?

Mortimer.CA writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft has submitted their HD Photo to the JPEG committee: 'Microsoft's ongoing attempt to establish its own photo format as a JPEG alternative (and potential successor) took another step forward today when the JPEG standards group agreed to consider HD Photo (originally named Windows Media Photo) as a standard. If successful, the new file standard will be known as JPEG XR.' Microsoft has made a 'commitment to make its patents that are required to implement the specification available without charge.' While JPEG 2000 exists, HD Photo has several advantages (not the least of which is a lot less CPU power is needed). Is this a big of an issue as ODF/OOXML?"

Comments

Oh God! Of course it's a big deal.

[twitter]

This is as big a deal as pictures. M$ is sure to make this one of those awefull non-standards like ACPI, MTP and a host of other. Want to bet their idea of a no charge "implementation" is a NDA protected SDK? They will then force it onto any camera makers who care to have their devices work with Windoze in the future. Then they will sabotage the alternatives so that their "captive" audience will have trouble sharing pictures with everyone else and themselves. In the worst of cases, there will be dozens of incompatible implementations, all guarded by a M$ patent, that leave people's photo albums locked down.

What, me cynical? Hell yes, and the evidence is in your face. If jpeg 2000 is not good enough, there's PNG. If M$ cared to improve imaging, they would simply surrender their patents and let others improve existing standards. But no, they don't like free formats and will do everything in their power to crush them.

Let's just hope this bad idea dies with Vista.

What we don't know is the problem

[erroneus]

I don't care that it's Microsoft. Here's what I care about:

Patented? Yes, so it's a problem
If patented, Royalties or License restrictions? We see no royalties, but what about license restrictions? Is it OSS friendly or will it not work within Firefox legally?
Is it effective or does it offer anything we don't already have? I don't know...

How much do you want to bet that

[wamerocity]

this standard is going to come with a way to put DRM in photos that can only be viewed with licenses, just like some WMV files? The porn industry would be all over that, and I'd bet they are financially backing them. It would be so easy to implement, especially with all the DRM-friendly coding that has gone into the Vista kernel.

Mark my words, M$ is looking for a way to put DRM in EVERY conceivable form of media. I've read articles about HARDWARE implementations that make moving of certain file types (mp3's, avi's) and other files that are not locked by DRM, to become locked. They have their own Audio and Video DRM, they are working on photo's, and soon the version of office will include DRM for all documents, spreadsheets and the like.

You'll see..