New Jpeg standard is ready.....

Published on April 7, 2002 By BoXXi In WinCustomize News

In a few months time, internet users will be able to make use of the JPEG2000 standard which it's developers claim, enables web graphics to be downloaded hundreds of times 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. The process of downloading large images often eats up bandwidth, thus slowing the download itself. 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 it's ability to send files without loss of data, which is not the case with current Jpeg files. To take advantage of JPEG2000, web designers will need a Plug-In for either Internet Explorer or Netscape browsers. These free plug-in's are expected to be on the market later this year. The extension for the new files will be ".jp2".
For more info, go to the website link below.

Comments

Entilza

on Apr 07, 2002

I am sorry if this is suppose to have better compression than jpg's then why did this happen ?

I used the same picture both times first i saved it using .jpg format and that was 62.2 kb's.

I used the same picture again and saved it with the .jp2(jpeg 2000) format and that came out as 224kb's

Strange huh ?
both was the same Picture hmmm.....

paxx

on Apr 07, 2002

It really comes down to browser support.
The PNG format has been around for a good 2 years at least, but browsers stills don't fully support it.
I would say, count 2 to 3 years before enough people have to necessary software (native support by the browser - lets face it, most people don't download plugins); so a little longer than that before we can see the format widely used... Maybe in 3 or 4 years...

GreenReaper

on Apr 07, 2002

I'd say PNG is ready for the big-time. I use it on my site as a replacement for GIF. Windows 98 can view PNG's in IE 4 out of the box, so really there's no real reason to avoid it, and it could mean the difference between a user staying at your site or leaving.

craeonics

on Apr 08, 2002

PNG is fine, but IE can't handle the alpha, argh!! Good thing me uses Mozilla. Compression is so so with bigger files though. As for this new jpg thing, it ain't going to fly if it's a plugin. It has to be native for it to fully take off. I only know two plugin that _is_ popular: Flash.

paxx

on Apr 08, 2002

GreeReaper: there is no big point in the PNG format without the 8 bits alpha channel it supports, which even IE 6 can't handle, as Crae said.
Craeonics: about the plugin issue, that was exactly my point. And the only reason the Flash plugin is popular is because it's automatically installed with the browser. So, really, it's almost "native" at this point.

craeonics

on Apr 08, 2002

IE's buggy PNG support wouldn't even be so bad, if it would not render a .png with alpha on a gray background... *sigh* Netscape (4) does it better, it just treats it as a .gif, meaning you do have transparency, but only where the alpha layer is completely black.

GreenReaper

on Apr 08, 2002

---GreeReaper: there is no big point in the PNG format without the 8 bits alpha channel it supports, which even IE 6 can't handle, as Crae said.---

Erm, no point in a significant decrease in file size? It cuts some of my files to *half* their size as GIF's. Most of the world still uses a 56k to access the net, and the faster a site loads the better. I don't need the advanced features - I just want better compression, which it does very well.

JanusXP

on Apr 08, 2002

I also prefer using PNGs as they can be compressed like JPGs, but without loss, and can use more colors than GIFs. Once IE supports the transparency of PNG images, it will truly the dominate the land we call Net World.

paxx

on Apr 08, 2002

I find JPGs much smaller than PNGs even at an acceptable level of compression. From my tests, PNGs are generally twice the size of a good JPG.
PNG is really just interesting for its amazing transparency support.

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