Microsoft Promotes New Image Format: Windows Media Photo
Filed in: Microsoft, Technology — May 27th, 2006
Microsoft reveals alternative image format to JPEG, Windows Media Photo. The new format will be supported in Windows Vista.
Windows Media Photo features:
- Multiple color formats for display or print
- High dynamic range image encoding
- Lossless or lossy compression
In the presentation of Bill Crow, program manager for Windows Media Photo, showed an image with 24:1 compression that visibly contained more detail in the Windows Media Photo format than the JPEG and JPEG 2000 formats compressed at the same level.
[via CNET News.com]
Microsoft Plus! Photo Story 2 seems to be the first application that support the new Windows Media Photo format:
Plus! Photo Story uses advanced Microsoft Windows Media photo and audio compression technology so your story retains great quality, yet is small enough to easily send in an e-mail message or publish to the Web.
[Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition - Photos]
My two cents
It would be great to have a better image format. The problem now is about the licensing of the new format. Will Microsoft make it a Windows Only format?
