Microsoft aiming to replace the JPEG standard
peestandingup
Registered Users Posts: 489 Major grins
Gotta love this story. I swear to you all, if consumers & camera makers are foolish enough to adopt this as the next Microsoft controlled "standard", I will give up photography forever.
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oh wait....i know the answer.
Im not saying the format itself is crap, but I sure dont trust the maker.
are you a mac user?
just thought I could sense it...:D (first use of emoticons)(to insure my comment is taken lightly)
WMPhoto = WMP format = "wimp" format?...name speaks oddly, dunno if the brains @ MS considered that.
and what exactly is their track record?
Do you really believe MS doesnt wanna own & control every single aspect of what we do on our computers & on the internet format wise?? Since you asked, read this and this. They are timelines of their lawsuit history. Search the words "monopoly" and "antitrust" and get back to me on that.
fact it will likely be a closed "standard" that, for the most part, only MS
controls. I'd be fine with it if they weren't in the habit of "extending"
standards in such a way that those who follow them can no longer use
servers that implement "standards" and their tools.
If they want to make it a standard, fine. Release the spec to the world and
let everyone play.
This standard suggests features that would be a substantial advantage. JPEG is a real pain in some places. It's shoddily implemented in many cases.
I have requested a licence for the technology, and am awaiting a response from MS. I will be interested to see the technical details.
Closed file formats are already part of our current photography reality. In their current mood I would actually rather have an MS controlled standard than a Sony/Nikon/Canon one. What about DNG, presumably you're very anti that for the same reason?
Giving up photography in response to a closed file format seems a little bizzare... Why not give up until the mythical OpenRAW comes along?
Luke
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com
If you've seen what JPEG2000 looks like from the inside, it might be more obvious why it only occupies limited domains. It's not exactlty a lightweight simple thing to analyise and implement. Heaven help you if you want to implement it in a digital camera with a strict power budget.
Standards grabs are part of life, even non profit making organisations are guilty of doing it. It seems the natural way things go. Standardise -> Expand to fill the availalble application universe -> Degenerate into general purpose programming language...
Can we have Turing complete WIMPs?
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com
Yes, its true. Anyone can sue anybody for anything. But, those links you provided of lawsuits against Apple are pretty lame compared to the plethora of suits I linked to against MS. Watch how those come out in the end. Apple isnt rolling over & settling in most those cases like MS does. MS just throws their $$ at the problem to make it go away because more times than none, they are wrong, just look at the cases man. In fact, Apple is counter suing Creative.
are you going to respond to any of my other comments?
+ There are economic incentives for suing MS. I gather it's a popular sport amongst chunks of the IT industry. I gather there are even patents changing hands simply for the manipulation of lawsuits targeting the likes of MS.
I don't think that law suits are a sensible measure of anything anymore. Especially not in these bizzare forms of economic warfare.
I have only looked at the AAXNet site and it hardly looks like clear unbiased information to me.
One can find plenty of damning evidence associated with any major corporation if one tries. MS are just one of the more successful ones, and yes, fairly ruthless. I believe it was Andy Groves, Intel who said 'only the paranoid survive'
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com
I say thats its DOA because I cant see people & companies jumping on this just because MS decides its time for a change & implements it into their next OS, when jpeg is there for everyone to use freely. Yes, it is old & could be improved on greatly, but I would rather not see them handle it for the reasons I gave Luke above.
I may be jumping the gun a little because we dont know exactly how MS will handle all this. If they play nice (which I doubt) then people will be more willing to go with them, yes me included. However, I think MS will probably try to use this as another way to monopolize content, I may be wrong, if I am I will say so.
Um, yeah. It's a business, eliminating all competition is the goal. All businesses want that. Competition is only good for the consumer. MS isn't alone in this.
Steve Jobs is trying to control the entire entertainment industry. Pixar, Disney, ABC, ESPN, and so on, and so on...
The worst that can happen is that it tanks. MS has failed at many things. Can anyone say web tv? The whole evil empire thing is a cliche that's ran its course a long time ago. The lawsuits only prove that the world watches and attacks when MS gets out of hand.
If they make the format open and it does not restrict freedom, then I don't mind, however, if this is a subtle ploy to implement a Microsoft only format, or place some kind of DRM in it, then it should die a quick and painless death.
I have come to the end of my rope with activation, DRM, and schemes designed to impair open standards. I don't support them any longer, and I am transitioning away from all app's and hardware that do it.
Anyone notice the noose around freedom that has been slowly tightening since WindowsXP came out? I have. I am jumping out of the water before it gets hot enough to boil me. If you just accept these subtle gradual restrictions to freedom, pretty soon you won't have any left.
"Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." - fortune cookie
No, Shay is right. With Adobe tracking your every move once you install any one of their products, it's enough to cause ulcers and warts. I have steered clear of PS CSx for that very reason.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Didnt PNG format solve alot of the compression/quality issues of JPEG or is PNG inadequate aswell?
Now The Rant...
I am against any file standard that can not be easily implemented-transported to other applications, commonly (not always) we see companies relying on making their format the feature rather than focusing on building quality software and I thnk this is at the ulitmate detriment of us the consumer. I hope that microsoft do follow that path in this instance.
Anyhow I will wait and see how this pans out...
Cheers, Nigel
All care but no responsibility
Not really. PNG is a lossless compression scheme and is generally weaker in compression than normal JPEG, JPEG2000 takes it for a walk round the park...
It's a much simpler compression scheme, and a fairly good one for what it is, but it's intended to be lossless (now unfortunately the people who wrote some certain pieces of open source software had forgotten how to read the standards when they implemented their compressor and forced compression in through smoothing, so a small fraction of the world is now deeply confused as to what PNG is.... but it's an open standard, they are indeed free to mangle it in whatever way they see fit)
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com
A brief scan through the standard indicates that it doesn't contain DRM or activaction based features.
I respect your opinion. We've been through this before. I still think you're being idealistic and all it will do is damage your business, but you are at least free to do so
I wish you luck in finding a camera that supports open standards, I would hardly define JPEG as one. Like the way that in theory you have to pay to obtain a copy of the technical standard. You're not allowed to change anything, and there are patents covering more than half of it.
Incidentally have you seen that many banks are trying to force imaging packages to include bank note detection algorithms that are licenced from them in a closed source manner. This is being enforced by governments.......
I now can't really write software as a private individual without risking infringing one of the 4 billion utterly stupid patents that some random company owns somewhere, who sues me and takes my house. I think this is far more insideous than closed file format standards.
Freedom? Remind me what it is again.... :cry
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com
"Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." - fortune cookie
Well put.
Microsoft latest teaming with MTV is horrendous in that it states in the user agreement they are allowed access to your PC at any time and to install whatever they want. Fortunately many articles have been written warning people of this.
People won't accept DRM easily and it will affect sales, however our biggest threat is our own goverenment willing to pass laws to force these restrictions down our throat. Stay tuned.
The company that sued RIM, NTP, originally produced a product. At least
until they discovered there was more money in patent law than product
development. Then they started buying IP from failed startups, etc. And
they've been making a lot of money (ignoring the final settlement from RIM)
since then.
Intellectual Property is what it's all about. Heck, I walk past a wall of patent
awards every day. Those patents are the results of design work that has
made the company a lot of money. And they have cost the company a lot
of money in terms of application and research of existing patents (to insure
there's no infringement). So you can imagine the company wants to protect
that work as long as it can. Let's not forget the perceived value of those
patents should our company become a takeover target (or should we decide
to acquire another).
That said, I do believe that the number of applications and the complexity
of many (especially in the technical disciplines) has resulted in a less than
thorough review of the applications. As a result, many ridiculous patents
have been issued.
I also think the whole patent process needs an overhaul. Perhaps more
potential patents should be classified as trade secrets?
I have nothing particulally against the concept of patents and I certainly understand the need for IP law.
However patents as they currently standard serve more as bullets in economic warfare than as a legit. IP protection schemes.
A small company that has a patent can't afford to enforce it against a large company, and large companies use them to file counter lawsuits against each other on a frequent basis. A large company that wants to destroy a small one sues them for violation of multiple specious patents that it purchased for the purpose.
It was pointed out to me that perhaps having a patent office that was funded by income from patent acceptances was a bad idea. As time progresses this seems more and more of a truism.
So what was once a system that worked for the protection of innovation and assisted in the generation of scientific progress, esp. by small companies is now used as a weapon by companies against each other and against individuals they don't like.
This is justice?
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com
That's not a legitimate example. From what I have read, Adobe just wants to get the problem solved, to the point where Adobe is willing to turn over DNG to a standards body if necessary. For companies like Adobe there is great money to be saved by an open raw file format no matter who implements it, as long as it is a good format. Think about not waiting for weeks for a updated converter to be written and tested every time a new camera comes out with yet another unique raw format. They, and every other raw converter maker, would love to release that burden.
References, easily turned up by Google (my search was "dng standards body open"):
From
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/pdfs/DNG_primer_manufacturers.pdf
"Ultimately, DNG is not intended as an Adobe-only solution. It needs to evolve to suit the requirements of all digital photography vendors and customers, and Adobe welcomes feedback about how the format should be enhanced in future revisions. Ultimately, it may make sense to turn over DNG to an appropriate standards body for further enhancement, so that its evolution can truly be a collaborative effort. "
From
http://www.openraw.org/node/1482/540
"We are also very open to the idea of releasing DNG to a standards body. This did not appear to us to be a good way to kick off the format, because there simply wasn’t enough interest within the standards bodies to pursue the issue at that time. We believed we could generate more momentum by releasing something to the public, where the pain of the problem was being felt most acutely. If the public enthusiasm leads to greater interest within a standards body, we’re happy to work with them. We’re even open to accepting an alternative to DNG as a common raw format." - Kevin Connor, Adobe
Has Microsoft said anything like this for their formats?
Maybe. Perhaps I wouldn't go about it in the same way if that was all I wanted, but I guess I'm not aware of Adobe's internal politics. Thankfully. I haven't really given the problem enough brain cycles, it's not something that I'm in control of...
Of course there is, I understand this
(Esp. as I'm writing an experimental RAW converter, targetting DNG at the moment)
This is IT. Definitions of good that everyone agrees on are few and far between, but I agree with you in principle. It's interesting, it's actually also in Adobe's interest for this not to be the case, as they are the biggest fish in the pond. I'm impressed that they haven't tried to use this to outcompete the smaller players.
Interesting. I heard mumbled complains from some MS employees who were involved to some degree or other with the standardisation of .NET.
Generally I get the impression that the standards bodies are a monumental pain to work with, slow, expensive, beaurecratic and awkward. But this is only a perception, my dealings, unplesant as they have been, have been tangential so far.
Note the word even. I'll believe it when I see it. Having seen some of the discussions the OpenRAW people are having, I'm very glad that someone with some sanity is maintaining control over DNG. I suspect the final thing that pushed Adobe over the edge was the garbage associated with NEF encryption.
Actually I'm very much in favour of standards, esp. with things like imaging, I'm tired of all this wittering over file formats and converters. If this is an MS closed format where they won't allow other people to write converters, I doubt I will use it heavily.
I don't know, I tend not to read their press releases, I also grow tired of reading spin. I wouldn't be suprisied if they said similar things over the .NET alphabet soup standardisation (CLR/CLI/CLS/C#/MSIL/.....)
But of course their problem is much much harder, I certainly wouldn't trust ISO to try and manage development of .NET. The very thought is terrifying. I'm not sure I would care for the Open Source people to do it either. MS seem to have done a tolerably good job so far.
But interesting as this all is, I really must be getting back to work and typing less
Luke
SmugSoftware: www.smugtools.com