ISO/IEC 29199-2 might not say a lot to a lot of people, but the fact of the matter is that at least its consumer-friendly version is bound to get more attention in the future. Nothing else by the official designation of JPEG XR, ISO/IEC 29199-2 is an International Standard, as of mid-July 2009. Not only this, but JPEG XR is also an ITU-T Recommendation (T.832), Microsoft has noted. The simplest way to think of the new, approved ISO/IEC International Standard is as the future of JPEG. As ubiquitous as JPEG is currently across all devices dealing with digital images, the file format is not without its shortcomings, especially those associated with picture quality.

In this regard, Microsoft has developed what it was initially referring to as HD Photo. “JPEG XR is the standardized incarnation of HD Photo, an innovative new format for digital photos developed at Microsoft, and first shipped in Windows Vista. There are a few minor differences between HD Photo and JPEG XR; these changes were the result of some excellent work by the JPEG Committee that helped insure the highest possible quality for the approved standard,” Bill Crow, Microsoft Seadragon group manager at Microsoft Live Labs, revealed.

Having been approved as an international standard, JPEG XR is, of course, available for free to all interested parties. In this regard, software publishers and hardware manufacturers can easily integrate support for the new file format into their products. Of course that interoperability is the biggest barrier that stands in the way of the adoption of the new standard. But with Windows already offering support for JPEG XR, the ecosystem of software and hardware solutions built around the operating system could soon follow.

With the ISO/IEC approval out of the way, future development efforts will focus on allowing the use of JPEG XR image coding within the JPIP protocol. At the same time, the Motion JPEG XR specification, designed to support video sequences, is extremely close to the Final Committee Draft phase of the ISO/IEC approval process.

“JPEG XR offers some dramatic benefits when compared to the original JPEG file format that we all know and love,” Crow noted. “Better compression – JPEG XR offers improved efficiency compared to JPEG, and the type[s] of compression artifacts are often less objectionable than the typical JPEG compression artifacts. More image formats – JPEG XR supports 8bpc (bits per channel), 16bpc and 32bpc, as well as several special bit depth formats. Pixel values can be stored as either integers, scaled fixed point numbers or full floating point values; this provides full support for numerous high dynamic range (HDR) imaging scenarios, as well as support for wide gamut color spaces. Advanced decoding features – JPEG XR provides progressive decoding, allowing lower resolution previews or specific cropped areas to be displayed without the need to decode the entire image.”