Microsoft to Supplant JPEG with HD Photo Format

If you think that, with the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is only looking to push its XAML markup language to replace HTML and the OOXML standard that is dependent on Office 2007, think again. Because with Windows Vista, Microsoft is also bringing to the table a new image format designed to take the place of JPEG.

The Microsoft HD Photo standard was introduced in 2006 as the Windows Media Photo format. The Redmond Company has forecasted that HD Photo will become the de facto standard for digital images, much in the sense of what JPEG is today.

According to Microsoft, HD Photo is superior compared with JPEG. In fact, Microsoft has tauted that HD Photo delivers twice the quality of JPEG, and as JPEG uses lossy compression it is easy to understand why. HD Photo will also offer compression capabilities that are similar to those of JPEG-2000.

Additionally, the image standard that Microsoft wants Vista to drive to ubiquity also supports "multiple color formats, fixed or floating point high-dynamic-range image encoding, lossless and high-quality lossy compression, efficient decoding for multiple resolutions and subregions and minimal overhead for format conversion or transformations during decode."

The integration of HD Photo format in Windows Vista will force device makers to take notice and to offer compatibility across their products. Adobe Systems has also announced that HD Photo will be supported in CS3.

However, JPEG is currently universal, both in consumer use and in the dimension of support it enjoys across devices and software products. Even with the inclusion of HD Photo in Vista, Microsoft's standard will not have an easy task ahead.