Can A New Open Photo File Format Replace JPEGs? (cnet.com) 271
Got lossless compression? An anonymous reader quotes CNET:
Google, Mozilla and others in a group called the Alliance for Open Media are working on a rival photo technology. In testing so far, the images are 15 percent smaller than Apple's HEIC photo format, said Tim Terriberry, a Mozilla principal research engineer working on the project. But smaller sizes are just the beginning... it's got a strong list of allies, an affinity for web publishing and modern features that could make it the best contender yet for overcoming JPEG's 1990s-era shortcomings... JPEG isn't just limited by needlessly large file sizes. It's also weak when it comes to supporting a wider range of bright and dark tones, a broader spectrum of colors, and graphic elements like text and logos...
The HEIC's new rival is from the Alliance for Open Media, a group whose top priority is a video compression technology called AV1 that's free of patent licensing requirements. It's got heavy hitters on board, including top browser makers Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and the most recent new member, Apple -- though Apple's plans haven't been made public. And it's got major streaming-video companies, too: Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Facebook, videoconferencing powerhouse Intel and Google's YouTube. And with the support of chip designers Intel, Nvidia and Arm, AV1 should get the hardware acceleration that's crucial to making video easy on our laptop and phone batteries.
To use Apple's HEIC, "makers of software, processors and phones must jump through a lot of hoops to license patents," which CNET predicts "means HEIC will have trouble succeeding on the web: patent barriers are antithetical to the web's open nature."
The HEIC's new rival is from the Alliance for Open Media, a group whose top priority is a video compression technology called AV1 that's free of patent licensing requirements. It's got heavy hitters on board, including top browser makers Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and the most recent new member, Apple -- though Apple's plans haven't been made public. And it's got major streaming-video companies, too: Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Facebook, videoconferencing powerhouse Intel and Google's YouTube. And with the support of chip designers Intel, Nvidia and Arm, AV1 should get the hardware acceleration that's crucial to making video easy on our laptop and phone batteries.
To use Apple's HEIC, "makers of software, processors and phones must jump through a lot of hoops to license patents," which CNET predicts "means HEIC will have trouble succeeding on the web: patent barriers are antithetical to the web's open nature."
Apple’s format? lolwut? (Score:5, Insightful)
HEIF is not an Apple format. Apple only got involved with it years after it was standardized by MPEG in 2015.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess this is a similar mistake to "Apple's proprietary AAC audio CODEC"...
which is not from Apple to begin with.
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly AAC means Apple Audio Codec. /s
Yes, I have heard that claimed before to “prove” it’s Apple’s format.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, at least some people may have been confused by the similarly-named ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), which does have "Apple" in the name.
But yeah, my first thought when hearing this was, "How is this any more "Apple's format" than HEVC or the other things put out by MPEG?"
JPEG 2000 (Score:2)
JPEG 2000 format is useful for only one thing... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why isnÃ(TM)t JPEG 2000 supported on all browsers?
What I want to know is why isnÃ(TM)t Unicode supported on Slashdot? Inquiring minds want to know.
Because of RTL vandalism (5:erocS) (Score:5, Interesting)
At one point, there was a push to make Slash support Unicode better. That ended when vandals figured out how to use bidirectional override code points to spoof moderation scores and otherwise wreck Slashdot's layout [slashdot.org]. Others used the new code points to post obscene "ASCII art".* That led to a code point whitelist and a halt on further development of Unicode support in Slash.
Rehash, a fork of Slash maintained by SoylentNews PBC, fully supports UTF-8. I don't know exactly what it does with current and future directionality control characters.
* I mean ASCII art in the broad sense: use of characters from other blocks for their glyphs rather than their meaning, in the same way that ASCII art in the strict sense uses Basic Latin.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Or they could blacklist the bidirectional and combining diacritic stuff and allow the rest.
But know their mentality is like that of dark ages peasant. Consuming dirty water until you die of dysentery was good enough for grandad and dad and it's good enough for them too.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
JPEG2000 compression isn't that much better than JPEG. In some cases it actually looks worse than JPEG at the same file size. See e.g. http://vterrain.org/Imagery/JP... [vterrain.org]
No point in going to the trouble of deploying a new standard image format everywhere if you don't get huge gains.
Also JPEG2000 only aimed to be royalty-free for "Part 1", the core codec. The patent status of the other 13 parts of the standard is murky.
Re: (Score:2)
It must have something going for it - it's used to compress video frames for conversion to Digital Cinema Packages.
And you can't just substitute {your favourite alternative compression standard} into a DCP - it's *got* to be JPEG2000.
Re: (Score:2)
No doubt there are cases where it makes sense. But the Next Big Image Format needs to be a lot better than that. HEIC is, but it's patent encumbered. Hopefully this new AV1-based format will be even better, and patent-unencumbered too.
Re: (Score:2)
1. It is computationally expensive.
2. While parts of it are royalty-free, algorithms for faster compression and decompression is patented.
Yes, it is used for Digital Cinema, but systems in movie theatres always use special hardware for decompression.
Still too large. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You should use md5, it's smaller and much faster to reverse.
Re:Still too large. (Score:4, Insightful)
I put my images on a temporary web page, had the Internet Archive index the page, and then deleted it.
Re: (Score:3)
I uploaded mine to my facebook account, and then deleted it. I'm sure they'll survive forever!
JPEG already replaced, try to beat PNG (Score:2)
Holding this up against JPEG is the wrong standard. Does it outperform PNGs?
Re:JPEG already replaced, try to beat PNG (Score:5, Informative)
But... (Score:2)
Do we really need lossy compression for still images any longer?
The network is way faster, local memory, storage, and graphics card resources are all way less expensive, and data lost from an image is data lost forever.
What we need is fiber everywhere, or something of equivalent speed.
Re: (Score:2)
Do we really need lossy compression for still images any longer?
Yes. Smaller images saves bandwidth for everyone. A company like 500px from the article [cnet.com] wants the bandwidth savings. Netflix wants AV1 for video for the same reasons, which is why they and other content providers are members of AOMedia [aomedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
JPEG and PNG have very different purposes. PNG is not suitable for photos in any low-bandwidth scenario, the file sizes are huge. PNG was never meant to compete with JPEG at all, it was meant to replace GIF -- which it has mostly done for static GIFs.
Re:JPEG already replaced, try to beat PNG (Score:5, Insightful)
And in an ironic twist of fate, 50MB animated GIFs replaced 1MB MP4s for short silent video clips.
Re: (Score:3)
And in an ironic twist of fate, 50MB animated GIFs replaced 1MB MP4s for short silent video clips.
Thus proving that there are never a shortage of idiots who will insist on using the wrong tool for the job at hand.
Re: (Score:2)
Just for shits and giggles, I'm tempted to make a bitmap-to-Excel converter that simply fills the cells with background colours to replicate the input image.
Re:JPEG already replaced, try to beat PNG (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, is definitely a thing:
http://makeanddo4d.com/spreads... [makeanddo4d.com] :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Low-bandwidth scenarios are not fit for use. This isn't 1992.
Respect your data. Don't throw away information.
JPEG/PNG integration (Score:2)
We should only need one image format, that automatically identifies the type of image that it is looking at. There is no format today that can take an image of, say, a newspaper page with both text and image on it. Different parts need different image compression techniques. Some lossless, some lossy.
That is something that would be useful. Particularly to non-technical people that do not understand the difference between JPeg and PNG. 15% better compression is a waste of time and certainly not worth co
Re: (Score:2)
I put the blame on Adobe for letting Photoshop and Illustrator save PNGs as hugely bloated files. Still to this day I hear people saying JPEGs are smaller than PNGs, even for corporate logos saved directly from the master file (PSD/AI).
ImageOptim should be item #2 on the software list of every Photoshop user.
Re: (Score:3)
We should only need one image format, that automatically identifies the type of image that it is looking at. There is no format today that can take an image of, say, a newspaper page with both text and image on it. Different parts need different image compression techniques. Some lossless, some lossy.
Sounds like you want magic, if I'm doing preservation work I might want it all lossless. I might be scanning a photo book where I care about the pictures or a ledger where I care about the text. What if the text is added on top of the photo or blended into it with transparency? What's text anyway, is it black on white or is it runes and hieroglyphics and stone tables and scrolls? If you want to mix it up I think you should just go with a document format like PDF because the text is probably better off being
Re: (Score:2)
There is no format today that can take an image of, say, a newspaper page with both text and image on it. Different parts need different image compression techniques.
We have one already: djvu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Don't we have enough? (Score:3, Insightful)
The number of image formats documented for computer systems is pretty big playing field. Do we really need another one? Surely one of the already existing formats will suit the needs of every possible use case, already?
If compression is the goal, I have to question that goal.. is that really necessary? Our storage is getting bigger exponentially, our bandwidth between devices is growing just as fast, is better compression really needed?
Re: (Score:3)
Do we really need another one?
Yes. AV1 outperforms JPEG and PNG. WebP (based on VP8) also outperforms [google.com] JPEG and PNG. WebP never saw much adoption but AV1 (a descendant of VP8) has a better chance given all the organsiations supporting it [aomedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
A format that can be losslessly converted from JPEG would be handy too. JPEG can be compressed losslessly to save about 20% on average, because it uses run-length encoding that can be replaced by Huffman. Archivers were doing that back in the 90s, with StuffIt on MacOS being the first I think.
Someone here once posted BPG, it's impressive. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yol... [github.io]
Sadly, I think it's got some stuff caught up in patents or something - the demo is very good.
I must admit, image wise, we haven't gone far in a long time. I'd like to see a very high compression lossless replacement myself and now that I (occassionally) do some light graphics work, JPG NEEDS to die, as soon as humanly possible, it's awful.
Re: (Score:2)
BPG [bellard.org] is based on HEVC. The patent licensing situation around HEVC is a complete mess with three different patent pools from which you need to get three separate licenses from and some HEVC patent holders (like Technicolor) are not in any patent pool so you also need another license from them.
Fortunately, AV1 is licensed under royalty-free terms and has no such hassles.
Re:Someone here once posted BPG, it's impressive. (Score:4, Insightful)
How can the parties participating in AOMedia be sure that no non-participating party holds essential patents that cover AV1?
How can any parties participating in any format development be sure that no non-participating party holds essential patents that cover their new format? It's a pointless argument.
AOMedia [aomedia.org] is going out of its way to avoid patent problems. That's the best anyone can ever do.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, if AOM blesses the new image format, the AOM license kicks in, which says a) by using that AOM codec, you agree to license your patents to other users and b) if you sue anyone for using the codec, you lose your royalty-free rights to AOM members' patents covering the codec.
So if you sue users of an AOM codec, you'd better be a pure patent troll and not trying to use the format yourself, or you'll be countersued into oblivion. This reduces the pool of entities which can viably attack AOM codecs.
PLEASE not another image format (Score:2)
We just had Apple introduce their new format, which isn't bad but is yet another format to deal with
Yes, JPG isn't as efficient, but storage is super-cheap these days and I'd gladly take universal support over slightly better compression.
Re: (Score:3)
...or at least let software catch up before it's set as the 'default' in image-taking devices.
Coworkers need to take photos of products for me for example, and everyone with an iPhone has to change settings so HEIC isn't the default, since Photoshop doesn't recognize them (at least my PC's CS6 doesn't) for uploads to, like, Google Drive. Some are not tech literate at all, so this is a fairly big hassle for them, and it makes working with other people a pain..first time it happened I had no idea what was goi
My problem with HEIC (Score:2)
Nothing other than iStuff knows what to do with it. It's fine, but right now it's inconvenient, so JPG it is.
Does HEIC support transparent backgrounds? That's the only real shortcoming of JPG that has fostered the growth of PNG.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing other than iStuff knows what to do with it. It's fine, but right now it's inconvenient, so JPG it is.
Does HEIC support transparent backgrounds? That's the only real shortcoming of JPG that has fostered the growth of PNG.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In short, yes, HEIC does support alpha planes in addition to many other things.
Decoding a picture in 30 seconds (Score:2)
Once upon a time... it took my Amiga 3000 (68030@25Mhz) around 30 seconds to decode a 1024x768 JPEG at 15 Bits color depth. Resizing to screen size (usually 800x600), smoothing out artifacts, put in some dithering took another 30 seconds... I dare not to imagine how long it would have taken on a much slower Amiga 500 (68000@7Mhz), not to speak of the infamous JPEG decoder for the CPC6128 which a friend used to convert single pictures OVER NIGHT.
This was no fun at all. I always hated JPEG for being horribly
Re: (Score:2)
This was no fun at all. I always hated JPEG for being horribly slow. Even my first 486 usually took ten seconds to decode the same picture and only after aquiring the "quick picture viewer 386" from Oliver Fromme. It took Irfanview on early P3 and Athlons to display JPEG without feeling bored...
When I was a boy, I got my first PC, a P133 with 72M RAM and a 720M hard disk.
I also soon aquired a reasonable sized, uh... collection of jpegs. I never remember encoding delay being that bad.
Also, by the time we got
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.tvgohome.com/faq.ht... [tvgohome.com]
11. Why use a JPEG for the listings instead of text?
Because I want precise control over the layout. And because it seriously annoys "real ale" Internet users who do all their browsing on text-based hand-held calculators, and that arouses me.
Maybe (Score:2)
Maybe using JPEGs for the comparison images wasn't the best choice (at least I can't see much difference by the unnamed and HEIC).
What happened to JPEG2000 (Score:2)
Why did nobody use JPEG2000? It is notably better than JPEG. Both had patent issues, but that hasn't held-up open adoption of the JPEG format.
Re: (Score:2)
VP9 took off. Opus took off. I'm not sure why you'd say this.
darn (Score:3)
Apples what? (Score:2)
So (Score:2)
The graphics artists hate JPEG (commented on Slashdot).
The scientific imagers hate JPEG (personal experience).
The photographers hate JPEG (commented on Slashdot).
The users don't know any better and couldn't care less as long as they can see what they want to.
So who the fuck decided to put JPEG on every thing that produces anything visual ?
Re: (Score:2)
The graphics artists hate JPEG (commented on Slashdot).
The scientific imagers hate JPEG (personal experience).
The photographers hate JPEG (commented on Slashdot).
We do? We hagte inappropriate use of JPEG, that's for sure. If someone sumps the lively low noise 14bpp output from their $30,000 EMCCD into a JPEG, then I want to cry, rage and flip tables.
Also, if I see another fucking JPEGged graph I am going to seriously lose it.
And I still use JPEG for most stuff, because it's enairely appropriate as an end p
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Informative)
Can someone tell us what's wrong or deficient with JPEG?
Quoting the post (not even the linked text):
"JPEG isn't just limited by needlessly large file sizes. It's also weak when it comes to supporting a wider range of bright and dark tones, a broader spectrum of colors, and graphic elements like text and logos..."
Re: (Score:2)
Then use PNG for those types of images.
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Insightful)
24-bit PNGs are lossless, so if they incorporate photographic elements, the compression ratio is very bad.
An image format that balances lossy compression for photographic content but which can also efficiently handle graphic elements efficiently without major artifacts would be a good thing.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not JPEG-LS? It's way faster and lower complexity than png while also yielding much higher compression ratios..
Re: (Score:2)
I was responding to the part about text and logos not photos.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The need for "lossy compression for photographic content" belongs to the time when 640 K was more RAM than anyone would ever need and a modem faster than 2400 baud was too fast for even the best speed reader. Back when the big argument was how to best partition that 40 MB hard disk: 32/8 to get the biggest possible C: drive? 20/20 so C: and D: were equal size? Or the common compromise: 30 and 10?
PNG does not compress as well as JPG, but the difference between a display latency of 32 microseconds and one of
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Insightful)
PNG does not compress as well as JPG, but the difference between a display latency of 32 microseconds and one of 53 microseconds is meaningless when eyeball latency is measured in milliseconds
Microseconds? You're off by a factor of 1000.
I took a 1024x640 TIFF photograph I had laying around and converted it to a 50KB jpg with moderate compression and a 500KB PNG and uploaded them to a well connected web server (10Gbit interface to the internet)
Then loaded them both in my home computer's browser. The jpg file took 86msec (that's milliseconds, not microseconds) to load, and the PNG file took 796msec (average of 5 tries). My home internet connection is 100mbit, pretty decent by American standards, if not by world standards.
I don't know about you, but I can definitely notice the difference between 800 msec and 80 msec.
Re: oblig. link #927 (Score:5, Insightful)
nobody fucking cares if you have 'truer hues' or some other bullshit in your app or web site images. 99% won't even care, or even notice, if you use a higher compression on jpg.. digital tv (especially cable and satellite) is full of compression artifacts and those same people don't see it there either.
Correction: YOU don't see the artifacts & aren't bothered by them. Quite a few programmers do, and find them to be highly objectionable. Ergo, programmers are most highly-motivated to solve problems that annoy programmers, even if "normal people" don't care.
Specific example: telecine judder. "Normal" people see it & think "film look". Programmers see it & think, "how can I change the native framerate to an integer multiple of 24 to match, and/or algorithmically-tween additional synthetic frames to make the motion smoother?"
Re: (Score:2)
Then use PNG for those types of images.
PNG has its own set of deficiencies, and not every image fits cleanly into "better as a JPEG" or "better as a PNG". Many images are way smaller using wavlet compression, but also need transparency, which JPEG doesn't support. But if you convert to PNG, you get a file size 10 or even a 100 times larger, because PNG is lossless.
It would be much better to have one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases [xkcd.com], a single format that allows a mixture of wavelets, rasters, and vector graphics, as well as a
Re: (Score:2)
It uses a lossy compression method. That makes it unsuitable in any application where you can expect some uses will be copies of copies (of copies), such as long term archiving, especially when periodic winnowing by a human curator is a part of the process. Or broad distribution where reformatted copies are permitted or even encouraged.
An example of the last are illustrated instructions for use written in English with the intent that others will translate the work into Arabic, Chinese, and even Australian,
Re: (Score:2)
An example of the last are illustrated instructions for use written in English with the intent that others will translate the work into Arabic, Chinese, and even Australian...
Get a dog up ya! Bloody nong.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been a bit of a fool. Even written Aussie, when used 'tween themselves, is a foreign tongue. Cheers!
Re: (Score:2)
I think they're just trying to soften us up for this abomination:
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/... [nasdaq.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I get why JPEG isn't perfect but the big issue here is that for the vast and overwhelming use cases, JPEG is "good enough".
It's going to be hard to come up with an alternative that's not ridiculously patent encumbered.
LK
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is expecting the transport and storage standards to catch up after all other standards have.
Cameras capture wider colour ranges at better bit depths than they used to. Monitors have gone not only to wider colour gamuts but also to HDR. The average consumer now has access to equipment that outperforms the standard storage mechanism.
The problem here is that the user is driving the adoption. It's why JPEG2000 hasn't replaced JPEG, or why any of the other better than JPEG filetypes have done so eith
Re: (Score:3)
I get why JPEG isn't perfect but the big issue here is that for the vast and overwhelming use cases, JPEG is "good enough".
It's going to be hard to come up with an alternative that's not ridiculously patent encumbered.
I don't think patents are the most serious issue. It's a handy whipping boy, but the legacy installed base is the big one.
There have been numerous "replacements" to JPEG, as well as other image formats. It took decades for the vastly suprior PNG to overtake GIF (even with patent issues in GIF), but even then, GIF is very much alive and well.
The same can be said about older video codecs (Many Blu-rays are still encoded using MPEG-II, in spite of the availability of better codecs). Nobody complains about the
Re: Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:2)
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I've always hated it if I have a graphic arts hat on, and yet when as an amateur photographer I end up rendering to jpeg in the end.
We need a new format, then we need to wait 10 years for The Store Formerly Known as Kinkos to buy "copiers" (printers) that support the format, and we'll be free of choosing between TIFF (80M file size limit and lack of compression support on most public printers makes this unrealistic), PDF with embedded JPEGs, or JPEG.
For internet use of course the thrash rate is much higher.
Re: (Score:2)
No, no. Your'e suppose to say FUCK ADOBE.
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but Adobe is the one that does the fucking in that relationship. The world's artists collectively decided that nothing Adobe does can ever drive them from Photoshop, so every month, bend over, pants down...
Re: (Score:2)
Photoshop saves artists time. They are familiar with it, there is a huge amount of support from the community, thousands of plug-ins etc. Changing would reduce their productivity and the quality of their work.
So Adobe can get away with a lot, because like Windows it has to get really bad before it makes financial sense for most people to switch.
Re: (Score:2)
MATLAB puts all Adobe products to shame.
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:4, Insightful)
JPEG was made for photography, therefore you have no business using it for graphic design. If you do use it, it tells me you are incompetent.
But you, in all your intellectual superiority, don't have the reading comprehension to grasp the (very valid) point he just made about the real world that handles your output for things like printing. NOBODY CARES what file format you work in, archive in, render from or anything else. What matters is what you can transport to the end user or print shop in real life. Which, if you were competent yourself, you'd know.
Re: (Score:2)
What matters is what you can transport to the end user or print shop in real life.
You mean like PDF/X?
Re:Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
One thing that's clear from the comparison is that x265 and AV1 both have a marked reduction in sharpness around the fine details. They appear blurred and smeared. In the JPEG version, more sharpness is retained compared to the x265 and AV1, although with more noise in the form of macro blocks. I'd still take the JPEG version over the x265 or AV1 version for whatever settings they happen to be using. That said, the amount of macro blocks showing up indicates very high compression. I've played around wi
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Keep the quality and color.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a few things wrong with JPEG that are covered above and below, but the truth of the matter is this: practically speaking, it's plenty good enough and plenty ubiquitous enough to secure it's place for the foreseeable future.
Text and logos are already handled better by PNG and SVG. But for photos? A high quality JPEG will look perfect to nearly everyone, and just about nobody cares if they can save 15% on a still image when they're slinging tons more data watching HD videos. Especially when that file
Ever seen a photo enlarged that was JPEG? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Why should JPEG be replaced? (Score:5, Informative)
Other places use paper that makes sense. One sheet of A0 is 1 square meter with an aspect ratio of sqrt(2). Keep cutting it in half to get A1, A2, A3, and so on, all with the same aspect ratio. A4 is close to 8.5x11, and is used for the same things. Metric paper really shines when you want to shrink/enlarge to the next paper size, thanks to the common aspect ratio.
Re: (Score:2)
How is AV1 more reliably RF than VC-1? (Score:2)
Microsoft and other proponents of VC-1 (SMPTE 421M) [wikipedia.org] thought it too was royalty-free until the patent holders came out of the woodwork, pulled allegedly essential patents out of their waste chutes, and formed a patent pool in MPEG LA.
Re: (Score:2)
The agreement covers VP8 and VP9, not VP10 (Score:2)
I seem to remember Google's 2013 license from MPEG LA [slashdot.org] only covering VP8 and one successor, not what amounts to VP10. From the WebM project's announcement of the license [webmproject.org], with my emphasis:
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any evidence AV1 is not royalty-free? These go-nowhere arguments are pointless.
VP8 and VP9 are royalty-free. Baseline JPEG is royalty-free. PNG is royalty-free. Opus [opus-codec.org] is royalty-free. AV1 will be royalty-free as well.
Unless you've got something concrete to prove that AV1 can't be royalty-free, there's nothing more to say.
Re: (Score:2)
owners of all the said patents agree for it to be so
They've already made that commitment by joining AOMedia. They've agreed to abide by AOMedia's patent license [aomedia.org].
said patent holders you are basically living on borrowed time
There is no borrowed time. The whole point of the alliance is to build a royalty-free video codec. That's what it's aimed at and all the contributors to AV1 are aware of the issues. Do you have any evidence that AV1 won't be royalty-free or is this just more idle speculation?
Re: (Score:3)
AOM uses a clever license that basically means you can't sue people over AOM codecs while at the same time using them yourself. More details: https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
With all the backing AOM has, supporting its codecs will be mandatory for tech companies that make real products, so they will not want to sue AOM codec users.
Pure patent troll outfits can have a go, and some probably will. But AOM will fight, and probably win, perhaps buying off the plaintiffs if that becomes necessary.
Opus has been o
Re:Container vs codec (Score:5, Informative)
Heic is an image container.
You're thinkig of HEIF. HEIC is the file extension convention Apple adopted to indicate a HEIF [github.com] file which contains HEVC encoded images.
With backing from every major tech company but Apple
No. Apple has joined [cnet.com] the Alliance for Open Media [aomedia.org]. So Apple is an AV1 backer as well.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
PNG does lossless far better. TIFF does need to die. Aside from the poor compression, the format itself is a horrific mess.
I write image processing applications, and part of that is writing loaders - I know TIFF is a mess. Just go read the PNG spec, then the TIFF spec. That'll convince you if you are able to grasp the specs.
Re: (Score:2)
TIFF does need to die. Aside from the poor compression,
Poor compression? Chances are that's your TIFF tools, not the format, the reason being that:
the format itself is a horrific mess.
Yep. It's mostly a container for image formats. Compared to PNG, well it's bilevel compression is usually better if you use the old Fax encoding (really!). It can also compres things as JPEG.
In PNGs domain, it's worse, but not much. It supports LZW with horizontal pixel differencing (one of PNGs modes). It dowsn't support the
Re:what we REALLY need to put down (Score:4, Informative)
TIFF is a container format, not an image storage format. There's big difference in scope between PNG and TIFF. The defining a container is what makes TIFF so messy, but it is also what makes it far more useful than PNG. It has far more flexibility and PNG can't replace it in all cases. Classic point: You can't even save a 32bpp file in PNG as it tops out at 16bpp.
Re: (Score:3)