Google Makes WebP in Effort to Make JPEG Extinct
Google claims that it has made a better JPEG.
The JPEG image format is a staple of the web. Even before the world wide web became popular, the JPEG format, along with GIF, was the way images were encoded for digital transmission.
Google is set to replace JPEG with something newer and better. While the JPEG has been an immensely valuable technology, it's one that was based off of decades-old tech.
Google's proposed solution is WebP, which is based off of the VP8 codec that the company open sourced earlier this year. Through the use of the modern video codec, Google adapted some of those technologies to the still image format and believe that it has made WebP more efficient with smaller file sizes.
A test, as detailed in the Chromium blog:
While the benefits of a VP8 based image format were clear in theory, we needed to test them in the real world. In order to gauge the effectiveness of our efforts, we randomly picked about 1,000,000 images from the web (mostly JPEGs and some PNGs and GIFs) and re-encoded them to WebP without perceptibly compromising visual quality. This resulted in an average 39% reduction in file size. We expect that developers will achieve in practice even better file size reduction with WebP when starting from an uncompressed image.
With images making up about 65 percent of internet traffic, Google believes that creating a new lossy format to replace JPEG could both lighten the bandwidth load and speed things up considerably.
Check out some of the sample comparison images here. There are notable differences.
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Awesome, looking forward to 2025 when this will actually become a standard
wasn't *.PNG the new web image format that was supposed to kill off JPEG? like 8 years ago lol
wasn't *.PNG the new web image format that was supposed to kill off JPEG? like 8 years ago lol
PNG was designed to replace GIF images, not JPEG. And for the most part I think it has succeeded, although it is hard to tell.
Well I'm all for a new/better standard. But Google has quite the fight ahead of them if they even want to become standard.
But then again, I'd never thought HTML5 would replace Flash when they first announced it, but now its looking like HTML5 has enough momentum to prove my former self wrong in the next 5 years or so.
wasn't *.PNG the new web image format that was supposed to kill off JPEG? like 8 years ago lol
Since you obviously have no idea what are you talking about, here are some facts:
- PNG was created to replace GIF.
- PNG is not 8 years old, first release was in 1996.
- PNG is a LOSSLESS format.
I had a hard time telling the difference in the comparison shots, and ~30% less bandwith is pretty huge. Go Google and their constant innovation!
Get rid of the adverts and bloated flash crap and pages will load 1000% faster.
Good luck getting the billion or so products that would need updates to support this format.
Awesome, looking forward to 2025 when this will actually become a standard
Haha if we are lucky full support across the board will arrive by then. Then maybe by 2030 websites will feel good enough to start using that format.
I think it'll be after 2025 when this standard takes effect...
Awesome, looking forward to 2025 when this will actually become a standard
Yeah, seriously. lol By then, no one will care since everyone will have internet connections that are 10 times as fast. Not only do developers have to support the new standard, so also would web browsers. It would take 15 years alone for everyone (stupid IE6 users!) to finally download and install a browser that could decode the image.
The problem here is that they applied a lossy codec to an image that was already converted into a lossy codec not including the png images.
[quote="K2N hater"]Get rid of the adverts and bloated flash crap and pages will load 1000% faster.[/quote]
It's called Adblock plus... use it...
As for googles images, I'm all down for it. another image type won't hurt...
i don't think this will revolutionize the way we surf the web, but all improvements are welcome
Im all for improvement but can we trust google, every WebP image may be spying on us
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30 [...] tificatio/
as for the comparison samples, how can anyone tell the difference at a postage stamp size + current browses are not able to view WebP images so they must all be jpg's, its like seeing how a 3D tv looks through a normal tv !!!
Given that it's google there is likely some clause in license that gives them control over the image contents to better sell search results.
I hope it supports good transparency otherwise its not going to manage to replace most web images, if it does it will be very handy to use.
Sorry Google thanks.... but NO thanks
I take pictures on both JPG and RAW (and yea RAW files are huge) but the image quality is way better than JPG.
This is like saying that a .KAR is the same quality than a .MWAV they are not.
Another example is trying to compare a 480i signal to 1080P sure a 480i file will be smaller but nowhere as good.
Of all those sample images, I was only able to spot a small difference in one of those images. I'm liking this already!
Whatever happened to JPEG2000? We don't need another format, we just need people to use the ones already out there. But it's always hard to supplant the first to cross the line. MP3 is hardly the best codec out there for music anymore, but it's about the only format guaranteed to work everywhere. Without browsers other than Chrome supporting WebP, it too will go by the wayside.
Yeah, seriously. lol By then, no one will care since everyone will have internet connections that are 10 times as fast. Not only do developers have to support the new standard, so also would web browsers. It would take 15 years alone for everyone (stupid IE6 users!) to finally download and install a browser that could decode the image.
[rant]You think the world resolves around you and that every one has the same internet speed as you. Stop and think for once. The internet is not just for you and the image formats are not deisgn just for those that are fortunate enought to have cheap 5+ mb internet speed. Open your eyes to the rest of the world who have an basic internte. For, this advances are a bless[/rant]
It's one thing to be smaller, but since it's a lossy technology, is the quality worse than JPEGs. Nothing in this article said it's the same quality, and smaller, just that it's smaller. Smaller and lower quality is easy.
There were image formates better than JPEG already, such as JPEG2000. It's not easy to make people to changes though.
It's one thing to be smaller, but since it's a lossy technology, is the quality worse than JPEGs. Nothing in this article said it's the same quality, and smaller, just that it's smaller. Smaller and lower quality is easy.
JPEG is a lossy format too - and its not as good. If you're encoding them both from the same source: WebP can look as good at a smaller size, or look better at the same size, or even both to some extent (small boost in quality AND size) depending on how they're compressed.
Whatever happened to JPEG2000? We don't need another format, we just need people to use the ones already out there.
There were image formates better than JPEG already, such as JPEG2000.
Yeah, people criticize MS for doing this sort of thing but Google is just as bad. They'll gladly ignore existing formats and design and market a new format that they control. I would have been happy to see major companies like Google embrace JPEG2000 instead. Maybe even extend it (JPEG2010?) and make it backwards compatible with JPEG2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000
See the legal issues at the bottom for JPEG 2000. It's a great system but I wonder if the grey area caused concern for Google?
I can make out the AY on the rail station sign much better with the WebP compression; and it is almost 40% smaller. Win Win. Go Google.
how long it will take to have this new format supported by the HTML editors and other development platforms?
as well as browsers... not sure if the Apple & Microsoft browsers will support it tomorrow...
but its a good news to see new format and better compression.
What about Jpeg2000?
I can make out the AY on the rail station sign much better with the WebP compression; and it is almost 40% smaller. Win Win. Go Google.
Go Google until we find that any WebP based image also collects data and send sit to Google to know what to advertise to you......
pretty good tech.
Go Google until we find that any WebP based image also collects data and send sit to Google to know what to advertise to you......
Hey if they can fit that into a 40% smaller file, all props to them.
If you want a real comparison, check out here: http://englishhard.com/2010/10/01/ [...] ersus-jpg/
It's one thing to be smaller, but since it's a lossy technology, is the quality worse than JPEGs. Nothing in this article said it's the same quality, and smaller, just that it's smaller. Smaller and lower quality is easy.
HAHA Okay, lets consider the advances in internet in the last 15 years to what's to come...
http://www.cedarville.edu/Offices/ [...] story.aspx
This chart isn't even up to date, any yet.. say, internet speeds are up 1500%. Who knew.. One can only imagine how speeds will be 15 years from now.