FLIF: Free Lossless Image Format

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FLIF: Free Lossless Image Format

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 2, 2015 @03:46AM from the silly-names-for-cool-things dept.

nickweller sends a link to an informational post about FLIF, the Free, Lossless Image Format. It claims to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, and other popular formats on any kind of image. "On photographs, PNG performs poorly while WebP, BPG and JPEG 2000 compress well (see plot on the left). On medical images, PNG and WebP perform relatively poorly while BPG and JPEG 2000 work well (see middle plot). On geographical maps, BPG and JPEG 2000 perform (extremely) poorly while while PNG and WebP work well (see plot on the right). In each of these three examples, FLIF performs well — even better than any of the others." FLIF uses progressive decoding to provide fully-formed lossy images from partial downloads in bandwidth-constrained situations. Best of all, FLIF is free software, released under the GNU GPLv3.

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GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 03:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.
Sometimes zealots get in their own way...
1. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 03:55 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yeah, doesn't this require that all software that supports the format needs to be released as GPLv3 as well?
  Who's bright idea was that?
2. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Etcetera · 2015-10-02 03:57 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.
  Sometimes zealots get in their own way...
  Yeah, I was just about to say this. Why in God's name would one put a library like this in v3? I suppose I should be happy they made a library at all instead of just "creating an app", but this will be nothing more than a science project.
  
  --
  Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
3. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Josh+Coalson · 2015-10-02 03:58 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.
  Not necessarily. If the format is free and well-defined, there can be other implementations. This happened with FLAC, which started out LGPL.
  
  --
  FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
4. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by kthreadd · 2015-10-02 04:00 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Yeah, doesn't this require that all software that supports the format needs to be released as GPLv3 as well?
  Who's bright idea was that?
  The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.
5. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by thevirtualcat · 2015-10-02 04:04 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  That was my initial thought too, but unless I'm mistaken, the GPLv3 just covers the reference implementation.
  The fact that the format itself is completely patent and royalty free means that anyone can implement their own version under whatever license they choose. They just can't use the reference implementation.
6. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by morcego · 2015-10-02 04:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, doesn't this require that all software that supports the format needs to be released as GPLv3 as well?
  Who's bright idea was that?
  The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.
  Isn't that exactly the kind of thing that free software was supposed to avoid? Having to reinvent the wheel because some nitwit had it locked on copyright?
  
  --
  morcego
7. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Trailer+Trash · 2015-10-02 04:04 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Note that in the case of Vorbis Stallman actually endorsed the BSD license because he understood that there was no other path to wider adoption. FLIF is the same - it'll remain nothing but a little-known oddity unless they decide to use a BSD license that will allow Microsoft, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to use the code.
  
  --
  Do you have ESP?
8. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by kthreadd · 2015-10-02 04:06 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Not at all. The goal of free software is that users should have freedom.
9. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 04:09 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Great, so it was just announced and it already needs to be re-engineered independently or the implementation forked and re-released to be usable for most.
  This is why we can't have nice things.
10. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 04:11 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  A fork cannot change the license.
11. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Kjella · 2015-10-02 04:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.
  And any time the reference implementation changes you have to alter your implementation in a non-copyright infringing way. That is a lot harder than it sounds because any time you get a little bit lazy and copy-paste, literally or practically your implementation is now legally fishy. Creating the clean room implementation and paper trail proving you've actually come up with your code independently is actually a lot worse when there is available source code than when it's not. Did you see how much shit Oracle managed to stir up over a few Java interface definitions and trivial bits of code? No company with a sane legal department is going to touch this with a ten foot pole.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
12. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by CastrTroy · 2015-10-02 04:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The GPL says nothing about users of the software. It only has restrictions as far as how the source must be handled when distributing the software. If you're just using the software, there's nothing in the GPL that has any effect on you. If you make modifications to the source code, and want to distribute those modifications (as compiled binaries or as source code) then you need to start adhering to the GPL. This means it doesn't really apply to most users, because most of them lack the skills necessary to make any modifications to the source code. The best they could do is pay somebody else to make the modifications they need.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
13. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Dutch+Gun · 2015-10-02 04:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.
  Which, I'm betting, no one will care to do. Even when there is a permissive license, it's still incredibly difficult for a new file format to gain any traction. Think about how many years it took for PNG to take root with decent support in graphics tools and browsers.
  If the ultimate goal is to promote this file format, this is not the best way of doing it. Apparently, keeping the software they wrote as FOSS/GPL is more important to the authors than broad adoption. That's fine, but just don't expect the rest of the world to come rushing to adopt this format. Sadly, it's probably going to be ignored, even if it's technically superior to PNG as claimed.
  
  --
  Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
14. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by TheRaven64 · 2015-10-02 04:19 · Score: 3
  Covering the reference implementation means that no one will even seriously evaluate it. Of the major browsers:
  
  Internet explorer (and the new one is called) is proprietary, no GPLv3 code linking allowed.
  
  The WebKit underpinnings of Safari are LGPLv2 (not GPLv3 compatible), so even if Apple (which has a corporate policy not to permit GPLv3 code in the door) wanted to adopt it, they can't.
  
  Chrome has the same issue with regard to LGPLv2 in WebKit.
  
  Firefox is triple licensed, and I think one of the licenses may be GPLv3 compatible, but probably not.
  
  If you can't ship a beta of the browser that supports it, then how do you do things like compare things like page loading time, bandwidth usage, and so on? Doing an open source release under a license that says 'you can't use this code, and if you want to implement this spec then you'd better make sure that you didn't look at our code' strikes me as taking the piss.
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
15. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by serviscope_minor · 2015-10-02 04:31 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Note that in the case of Vorbis Stallman actually endorsed the BSD license
  It's actually part of their general policy. For implementing things like reference implementations of unencumbered protocols and file formats, they recommend a permissive license to aid adoption:
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/li...
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
16. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Kjella · 2015-10-02 04:39 · Score: 2
  
  The GPL does not prevent you from learning from the source code to implement a compatible version under a different license.
  No, but "derived from" extends further than implementing the exact same thing with different variable names that you typed up yourself. It's the same for all copyrighted material, you don't need direct quotes to infringe on a book, the exact samples to infringe on a song's melody or using cutouts to infringe on a photograph. It's not a patent, it doesn't get a monopoly on every implementation. But you have to show it's not the same implementation, because that will infringe copyright.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
17. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by kthreadd · 2015-10-02 05:04 · Score: 2
  
  It looks like the Xpdf web page is inconsistent. I got this from the README:
  
  License & Distribution
  
  Xpdf is licensed under the GNU General Pulbic License (GPL), version 2
  or 3. This means that you can distribute derivatives of Xpdf under
  any of the following:
  - GPL v2 only
  - GPL v3 only
  - GPL v2 or v3
  
  The Xpdf source package includes the text of both GPL versions:
  COPYING for GPL v2, COPYING3 for GPL v3.
  
  Please note that Xpdf is NOT licensed under "any later version" of the
  GPL, as I have no idea what those versions will look like.
  
  If you are redistributing unmodified copies of Xpdf (or any of the
  Xpdf tools) in binary form, you need to include all of the
  documentation: README, man pages (or help files), COPYING, and
  COPYING3.
  
  If you want to incorporate the Xpdf source code into another program
  (or create a modified version of Xpdf), and you are distributing that
  program, you have two options: release your program under the GPL (v2
  and/or v3), or purchase a commercial Xpdf source license.
  
  If you're interested in commercial licensing, please see the Glyph &
  Cog web site:
  
  http://www.glyphandcog.com/
18. Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death by macs4all · 2015-10-02 05:05 · Score: 2
  
  Users are free because they have access to the source code, have the freedom to learn from it, change it and/or pass it along.
  You mean the freedom to pay someone else to do it, as was suggested above in this Post . Sounds like a lot of Proprietary packages to me.
19. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by ClickOnThis · 2015-10-02 05:08 · Score: 2
  Covering the reference implementation means that no one will even seriously evaluate it. Of the major browsers:
  Internet explorer (and the new one is called) is proprietary, no GPLv3 code linking allowed.
  The WebKit underpinnings of Safari are LGPLv2 (not GPLv3 compatible), so even if Apple (which has a corporate policy not to permit GPLv3 code in the door) wanted to adopt it, they can't.
  Chrome has the same issue with regard to LGPLv2 in WebKit.
  Firefox is triple licensed, and I think one of the licenses may be GPLv3 compatible, but probably not.
  All of this is irrelevant once someone releases a non-GPL library that supports the format. And internal evaluations can be done with the GPL implementation, while an adopter waits for (or develops independently) a non-GPL implementation.
  
  If you can't ship a beta of the browser that supports it, then how do you do things like compare things like page loading time, bandwidth usage, and so on? Doing an open source release under a license that says 'you can't use this code, and if you want to implement this spec then you'd better make sure that you didn't look at our code' strikes me as taking the piss.
  Nothing is stopping you from looking at the GPL code to see how it works, and then writing your own implementation. You just can't copy-paste the code verbatim.
  --
  If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
20. Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death by kthreadd · 2015-10-02 05:17 · Score: 2
  
  It's too simplistic to think of users and developers as separate entities and to say that the GPL is anti any of those is just ridiculous. Even users without a desire to write programs can have an interest in the source code. Even though they may not have the required skill and knowledge to modify the software themselves they may contract that job to someone that can. This is actually quite common, a lot of IT consulting companies work with free and open source software. Individual people may be fore or against licensing software under the GPL, that's fine. But all users no matter how much of a programmer they are can benefit from GPL'd software and there are plenty of examples of both types of users that do so.
21. Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death by kthreadd · 2015-10-02 05:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Users that lack the ability to change the software themselves can of course ask someone else to do it for them, either for free or for compensation. This is not at all the case with proprietary software. The vendor may of course choose to change the software for you but you have no such guarantees. Microsoft is not going to make fundamental changes to Windows or most of their other products if you ask them. With free software you are not locked in to the original vendor, you can ask anyone else to do changes for you.
22. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by ClickOnThis · 2015-10-02 05:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Great, so it was just announced and it already needs to be re-engineered independently
  You're getting it for free, with conditions. Conditions that you (or someone else) can work around. If you don't like the conditions, go create your own format.
  
  This is why we can't have nice things.
  Freedom is a nice thing, and the GPL gives it to you, provided you don't prevent others from enjoying the same freedom you get from the GPL.
  
  --
  If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
23. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by F.Ultra · 2015-10-02 05:50 · Score: 2
  
  Or the developer behind it hopes to sell a proprietary license to those who want's it. It appears that it's a single developer so he can relicense the whole codebase whenever he chooses.
24. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by gstoddart · 2015-10-02 06:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Do you know the value of a "free" platform nobody can integrate into their own product without their product becoming GPL, and whose reference implementation can't be used?
  Not a damned thing.
  So people can use it, but they need to write their own. They can't reference the reference implementation without tainting their own.
  So, what exactly is the incentive to give a damn about the format?
  Because I'm reading this as "look at our super awesome new format ... want a lick? Psyche!".
  So, something already GPLd will integrate this. And pretty much everyone else will wonder what they can do with it.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
25. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by tlhIngan · 2015-10-02 07:17 · Score: 2
  
  The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.
  At which point, as a developer, I'll go "So where's the demand?"
  This is a new "supposedly better" file format. But no one supports it yet, so you want me to waste my time creating an implementation for it?
  Effectively, a chicken and egg situation - no one wants to implement it if they don't have to because the license isn't usable and no one's using it, and if no one implements it, no one uses it.
  It's why reference implementations are usually in a very permissive license to at least pick up adoption - no one might be using it yet, but if it's BSD, I can go and add support for it trivially in my program. And when people do use it, all these programs are magically compatible because it was cheap to add support for it.
  But as it is, simply telling me "implement it yourself" is interpreted more as a "go f*** yourself". I have better things to work on in my program - bugs, features, and stuff people actually need and use. I'm not going to waste time implementing something that's not out there yet. (And if I wait long enough, there might be a more suitably-licensed version when demand requires it).
  Right now, the ball is in their court. Either they can convince content creators to use their tools to make content available (which if the tools don't integrate with their workflow, won't happen), or prove their format is so vastly superior it's worth the effort. Because unless there is demand, no one will support it. (And content creators will probably see that no one supports it and wonder why they should make special effort). Chicken and egg.
  Right now, unless someone does it out of generousity, it's dead.
26. Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Caesar+Tjalbo · 2015-10-02 07:39 · Score: 2
  
  GPL is anti-developer
  Nope. I'm a developer and quite often think the GPL is the best solution. It helps if you're a developer and user of the program.
  
  --
  "I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
27. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Citizen+of+Earth · 2015-10-02 08:17 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You're getting it for free, with conditions. Conditions that you (or someone else) can work around. If you don't like the conditions, go create your own format.
  In this case, the conditions mean that this format is DOA, so we can safely ignore it and get on with our lives.
28. Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 08:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Anytime anyone wants to bring in a new library, the first question is what license is it under. GPL3 means toss it, even for internal projects. There is no GPL3 code in anything I've touched because it's a "legal" virus.
29. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by gbjbaanb · 2015-10-02 09:45 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Well, this means no users will be using the software because Microsoft will not be able to bundle it in Windows as a native format (not without releasing the source code of Windows).
  This is the part where the GPL becomes problematic - while I think releasing the software that relates to the open source project is perfectly agreeable, making it apply to every other bit of software its linked to is not.
30. Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death by Shirley+Marquez · 2015-10-03 06:02 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, you are. The standard is open with no restrictions or royalties. The reference implementation is licensed under the GPLv3 and must be used under the rules required by that license, but independent implementations of the standard may be licensed in any way you like.
vs TIFF files? by mveloso · 2015-10-02 04:05 · Score: 3, Funny

How well does it work relative to TIFF files?
1. Re:vs TIFF files? by serviscope_minor · 2015-10-02 04:40 · Score: 2
  
  How well does it work relative to TIFF files?
  Exactly the same: just use TIFFTAG_COMPRESSION with the value COMPRESSION_FLIF.
  Facetious of course, but TIFF is more of an archive format which is somewhat good at storing image data, than an actual image file format. Less facetiously still, TIFF allows you to specify horizontal differencing and deflate compression which makes it quite similar to PNG. PNG has 4 modes: horizontal, vertical, square and none. So, you can get TIFF to be about as good as PNG without PNGCRUSH on many images.
  For pure B&W images, I've rarely ever seen anything beat TIFF if you specify the G4 FAX compression method.
  So there you go: it's probably better than what TIFF currently offers except for B&W images of text.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
2. Re:vs TIFF files? by ianezz · 2015-10-02 04:40 · Score: 2
  
  How well does it work relative to TIFF files?
  Well, if you refer to the final size for lossless encoding, remember that TIFF image data can be compressed using various algorithms and the format can be extended, so your mileage may vary. Nonetheless, just for this aspect, it should compare better than the usual TIFF containing LZW compressed data, though (but I'm not sure this is still the most common lossless compression scheme being used for TIFF).
  Plus, it behaves nicely on incremental decoding (less bytes to transfer to have a general idea of the whole picture). Adding further image metadata (e.g. EXIF tags) shouldn't be a big problem once the (compressed) image data format is stable.
3. Re:vs TIFF files? by QuasiSteve · 2015-10-02 04:56 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  In lossless compression, it beats TIFF hands-down for the mainstream compression methods (packbits, LZW, ZIP). You can use pretty much whatever compression you want in a TIFF file (it's more of a container format than an encoding definition), but given how well FLIF compresses vs other image compression methods, it's pretty good.
  The progressive loading is also superior to TIFF, which generally don't use progressive at all. I'm not sure how much this matters, though, as their example of using it for responsive design assumes that the graphic at lower resolutions 'as is' gives an acceptable enough result to replace current solutions that serve a different resolution image that may well have been specifically tuned for a given resolution/bandwidth. JPG already has similar progressive loading, and I don't know of any browser that will halt a JPG download after the Nth iteration deeming it 'good enough'.
  It also apparently has animation support, which may be better than APNG and MNG and others. For now GIF still seems to rule the animated image domain, despite its many shortcomings (imgur's faked-out video -> gif -> mp4-served-via-html-named-gifv doesn't count).
  On most other fronts, though, it seems TIFF (and other formats) may be superior. A rather big one is that it doesn't yet support metadata. Another big one for the graphics industry would be lack of CMYk and other color spaces.
  It also seems to support 'only' 16 bits per channel. There's a variety of 32bpc encodings for TIFF (straight, LogLUV, etc) and I do hope that it's just an arbitrary limit such that the work done in FLIF could conceivably be added to formats like OpenEXR.
  That would also largely take care of concerns like the lack of additional channels, layers, etc. that can be presented in TIFF. This would make OpenEXR the container format and FLIF the encoding (or, at least, the compression).
  That would still place it squarely in the interest of those dealing with graphics (a very fast decode of the progressive version used when framescrubbing, then loading the full 10k plate when paused for a bit, for example), and not so much the average consumer.
  For consumer adoption, it would need broad support among browsers (lack of webp support means that hasn't particularly taken off), from digital imaging device manufacturers (you're more likely to upload 'a FLIF file' if that's what rolled out of the camera / got written to the SD card to begin with) and in common software (but that tends to follow from the other two).
4. Re:vs TIFF files? by larkost · 2015-10-02 05:12 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That question is nearly un-answerable. TIFF isn't a concrete format like PNG or JPEG, rather it is a more meta-format that can contain tiled chunks of other formats. Even that isn't quite a good description as is over-generalizes. But it does capture the basic essence. TIFF is frighteningly complex, with lots of corner cases, and in most cases is only appropriate for very large images (for the tiling), or special cases such as scientific/biological data where the raw data is embedded in the "image".
What's wrong with GPLv3? by LichtSpektren · 2015-10-02 04:33 · Score: 2

Unless you wanted/intended to profit off of FLIF using locked hardware or DRM'd implementations, there shouldn't be any problem with the fact that its reference is GPLv3.
1. Re:What's wrong with GPLv3? by Bengie · 2015-10-02 05:28 · Score: 2
  
  GPLv3 is not compatible with nearly any other license. If your program is not GPLv3, you won't be able to use the reference code. you are free to reinvent the wheel and compare its output against the reference and hope it works well. Most programs in use are not GPL and FLIF will probaly never get supported until someone remakes it under a new license like BSD, Apache. or CDDL.
  
  Rule of thumb. If your license requires a lawyer to review it, it's not free.
Great. by SuricouRaven · 2015-10-02 05:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Now all we need to do is get image-makers to distribute in a format no-one can view, and software-writers to include support for a format that no-one ever encounters.
CPU? Memory? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 05:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

How much CPU time does it take to compress vs the others?
How much memory does it need to compress vs the others?
How much CPU and memory does it take to decompress vs the others?
Hard to say it's better without a complete picture.
1. Re:CPU? Memory? by dwywit · 2015-10-02 11:31 · Score: 2
  
  Been to the cinema lately? You're watching a stream of JPEG2000 images at 24, 25 or more frames per second.
  JPEG2000 isn't dead, and if it couldn't be decoded quickly enough, it wouldn't be used for DCPs.
  
  --
  They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH by Rei · 2015-10-02 05:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

It occurred to me that there might be a way around this problem: give it a header that starts with a PNG signature and then stores the FLIF data in one or more chunks that have no effect (such as text chunks or a new non-registered chunk type), then moves on to chunk(s) representing the exact same image in a conventional PNG format. So a person whose browser has no FLIF support will just read it as a PNG file that's about 50% larger than it needs to be, while a person whose browser has FLIF support can give up downloading the file as soon as it receives the FLIF chunk and not bother downloading the PNG version.

--
Crowd: What do we want? Fry: Fry's dog! Crowd: When do we want it? Fry: Fry's dog!
No real place for it by Solandri · 2015-10-02 05:50 · Score: 4, Interesting
Unfortunately, I don't really see a killer feature here.
- Progressive loading (first it loads a low-res lossy version, then additional data sharpens it up, until the final data makes it lossless) was a big deal back in the 1990s when people were on 56 kbps modems and it could take up to a minute for a detailed high-res photo to download. Kodak used a progressive format in their Photo CD standard back when CD readers read data off the CD at standard 154 kbps of audio CDs (in case you ever wondered where the 24x, 52x, etc CD speeds came from). Today, even cell phones have blown past those speeds.
- A few percent better compression won't matter for the same reason. Bandwidth and storage space are cheap.
- Universal support for photo-realistic vs. graphic work. Generally people needing those in lossless formats are picky enough to already select exactly which format they're gonna save it in. And again, file size is a much lower priority than compatibility with existing software and printing equipment.
NASA might be interested in it for transmitting data back from its deep space probes (New Horizons is gonna take a year to transmit back all the pictures it took). Likewise, someone might implement it as a way to reduce bandwidth when browsing the web over expensive satellite data connections while at sea. Those are the only use cases I can think of where low bandwidth still matters.
1. Re:No real place for it by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-02 06:01 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You're out of touch with half of the world. Bandwidth is extremely expensive and unreliable. The most popular browser in India simply doesn't load images, unless you explicitly click on them. Efficient progressive image formats would be great in those markets.
  And if you told Google you could use half or less of the storage space for all images all of a sudden of course they would take you up on it. Storage is cheap, but definitely not free.
2. Re:No real place for it by niks42 · 2015-10-02 09:42 · Score: 2
  
  I am a technical architect supporting the diagnostic imaging solution for a number of hospitals. CTs and MRIs are often 35-50MB each when encoded with lossless JPEG2000. Running multidisciplinary team meetings can mean 20 expensive clinicians sat together to discuss imaging from anywhere in the region, which means the time taken to fetch and display the imaging is of crucial importance. If I could switch to a lossless format that would replace JPEG2000 but still offer the progressive display, we could save half the bandwidth, cut down the storage from the petabyte of spinning disk in the region, cut clinicians wasted time (and bugger me, are they expensive!!)
  
  IRL should be good.
The most important question: by Hillgiant · 2015-10-02 06:55 · Score: 2

Is it pronounced with a short or long i?

--
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$5 to $15 per GB by tepples · 2015-10-02 07:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

Bandwidth and storage space are cheap.
Bandwidth is not cheap. Cellular and satellite Internet tend to cost $5 to $15 per GB.
Nor is storage space cheap, especially with the premium for a 64 GB phone over a 16 GB one. Also servers, as Anonymous Coward mentioned in #50646339.
Great marketing by Waccoon · 2015-10-02 10:04 · Score: 2

I like how the web site insists that the format is a work in progress, and future versions may not actually load images created with the current implementation.
Unlike document formats, media formats rarely evolve over time. For a media format not to be production ready means it's currently worthless. Be prepared to wait a few years to use a format that will never be widely adopted. Nice.
Multi Image Lossless Format by TeknoHog · 2015-10-02 10:56 · Score: 2

For animations.

--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
format change vs reference implementation change by bingoUV · 2015-10-03 11:10 · Score: 2

No, reference implementation changes do not mean all implementations have to change. Only format changes mean all implementations have to change.

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Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.