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Bellard Creates New Image Format To Replace JPEG
An anonymous reader writes Fabrice Bellard (creator of FFMPEG, QEMU, JSLinux...) proposes a new image format that could replace JPEG : BPG. For the same quality, files are about half the size of their JPEG equivalents. He released libbpg (with source) as well as a JS decompressor, and set up a demo including the famous Lena image.
Because the new half-the-size JPEG files wouldn't work with old JPEG editors/viewers.
Bandwidth still matters for mobile, so smaller images of the same quality are quite welcome on mobile sites and apps.
Given that the developing world is likely to get online via wireless solutions, bandwidth is going to matter for a lot of people for a long time to come.
Yesterday it worked; today it is not working; Windows is like that...
But JPEG2000 was absolutely crawling with patents like maggots and worms writhing through the very core of its being. If that didn't put everyone off then I don't know what would? Certainly ruined my lunch.
DJVU was another contender but it just happened to be tagged on to a PDF-like docuemnt format and not widely known as just an image format.
Finally, anything that was not (properly) supported by Internet Explorer ten years ago was a dead duck. And Microsoft and Apple actively snub any open format if they can get away with (like Vorbis, WebM etc).
I don't think we should compare BPG with JPEG, since it is very outdated. I wonder how it stacks against WebP - does it also support animation? Better compression? Licenses? Faster encoding/decoding? Browser manufacturer support? I'm all for making web more optimal, because you can never have "fast-enough" bandwidth, especially on a mobile device in bad connection area, but lets compare similar things.
With 'mobile' there are really two considerations: One is the fact that 'mobile' (even if the fault is, in fact, with shitty backhaul) is going to be fairly slow in emerging markets. Two, relevant even in wealthy developed nations without asshole oligopoly telcos, is the fact that mobile devices are brutally power constrained, and RF chatter isn't exactly cheap in energy terms. The faster you get the data you need and shut down, or move to a slower, lower power mode, the radios, the happier your battery will be.
With mains power it matters less (electricity isn't free; but a few extra dollars a month is far less annoying than having your battery keel over dead at a bad time); but barring exciting breakthroughs in battery chemistry or design, basically all the savings are going to have to come from the device side.
You and your friends who can get decent bandwidth, can afford decent smartphones and who can afford to just throw down an additional 2 euro a month for said bandwidth are, you may be surprised to hear, not representative of everyone. For example, the average internet connection speed in Algeria is about 0.94Mb/s. I'm pretty sure most people there are also not wandering around with the latest LTE enabled phone either.