7 replies to this topic

[slornie]

Quote

It turns out there was more to Google's WebM technology than just a plan to revolutionize Web-based video. The company also wants to revolutionize still images on the Web with a new format called WebP.

Google plans to announce the new WebP graphics format today along with its research that indicates its use could cut image file sizes by 40 percent compared to today's dominant JPEG file format. That translates to faster file transfers and lower network burden if Google can convince people to adopt WebP.

WebP, like JPEG, lets its users trade off image quality for file size. And like JPEG, it's a "lossy" format, meaning it doesn't perfectly reproduce an original image but tries to keep as true to the original as possible when viewed by the human eye.

Quote

Top: This image has been encoded with WebP. Because browsers can't show WebP natively today, this WebP image actually is displayed here as a PNG graphic that captures the WebP version without changes. In its WebP incarnation, the image is 36,154 bytes.
Bottom: The same image encoded with JPEG. Its file size is 46,768 bytes.

Source: CNET


So, any thoughts? Does Google have any chance with this?

Edited by slornie, 01 October 2010 - 08:55 AM.

[Valdez]

It'll take time to become mainstream. First the display capabilities of browsers and other image viewer applications, and then for various programs to get the capability to recognise such images.

[Mike.nl]

Valdez, on 01 October 2010 - 09:40 AM, said:

It'll take time to become mainstream.

Like how Internet Explorer was so quick to support transparency in PNG by standard?

[Dei]

PNG. <3

But yeah, I want them to increase image quality, I wouldn't care so much about 10 kb difference..[sure, with the new google image search page it'll matter but I prefer quality over loadtime..especially with images]

Edited by Dei, 01 October 2010 - 12:57 PM.

[Mike.nl]

Dei, on 01 October 2010 - 12:56 PM, said:

But yeah, I want them to increase image quality, I wouldn't care so much about 10 kb difference..[sure, with the new google image search page it'll matter but I prefer quality over loadtime..especially with images]

They're the same in this case. At the same image quality, WebP is smaller. Which means that at the same size, WebP has a better image quality than JPEG.

[Valdez]

Mike.nl, on 01 October 2010 - 11:28 AM, said:

Like how Internet Explorer was so quick to support transparency in PNG by standard?

But... it only took them like 6 or 7 versions to nail it right? We could even have png transparency support for MS paint by 2030 O_O

I still recall the times when I did a side by side comparison of firefox vs IE when viewing animated GIFs (used the afsluitdijk avatar I had) and the framerate on IE was crap.

Mike.nl, on 01 October 2010 - 06:28 PM, said:

They're the same in this case. At the same image quality, WebP is smaller. Which means that at the same size, WebP has a better image quality than JPEG.

Better quality "per unit data size" I guess.

I wonder if it's simply more convenient to make the internets go fasta... my country already has plans involving fibre optic broadband. Everywhere.

Edited by Valdez, 01 October 2010 - 08:02 PM.

[Dei]

Yes, but will we have the option to increase it's quality when saving items? Or is the full quality version just somewhat smaller than the full quality version of the JPEG?

[Valdez]

It simply looks like JPEG quality at a smaller filesize than JPEG. I suppose if you have like, a huge porno folder brimming with pics, it adds up and makes a huge difference in overall data size.