Yet another format...

[George Riehm]

From the "why can't JPEG do this?" file... This is interesting:

http://www.eet.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188103092

[rasmithuk]

will be built into the next-generation of Windows, called Vista.

I'll have a look and see if it's in Beta 2. That said I'ld be impressed if it is since it doesn't even support RAW at the moment. I'll let the conspiracy nuts decide if this is intentional or not.

Microsoft claim that it's in Beta 2, but none of the standard user tools support saving to it yet. Both Pain and Photo Gallery haven't got a clue it exists.

[Rhys]

Microsoft invented bitmaps. Everybody else used TIFF. Jpeg does need some revamping which is why jpeg2000 came out. I don't believe we need yet another image format but we'll get one anyway whether we need it or not. I'm have preferred MS to use DNG as a standard. Well, thank goodness my current laptop will run Vista (if and when it comes out). Although I might head straight over to Mac anyway and skip Vista's bugs.

[rasmithuk]

I'm have preferred MS to use DNG as a standard.

WMP and DNG share some features (8-32 bit precision) but WMP is more general then DNG (which isn't surprising as they're two solutions to two very different problems).

WMP can store images in RGB, BGR, CMYK, RGBA, PRGBA, greyscale and any other formats with up to 8-channels you wish.
The other benefit is the algorithm. While Microsoft haven't released specifics what they have released is a lot simpler (and thus cheaper to implement) then the DCT and FFT required for JPEG. JPEG2000 is a great spec but it demands even more processing power then JPG.

Hopefully Microsoft won't go crazy and try to keep the spec locked down, but I've a feeling that they might at least to start with.

If they don't go mad and the licening terms aren't terrible then it could get popular but maybe not in cameras. Most likely it'll end up being used to push images over slow links without loss of precision. If it is as simple as they claim printers could include a WMP decoder so instead of sending bitmap data across the link a more compressed version could be used.

[Shosta]

If comes from Microsoft there will be some kind of Digital Right Management (DRM) in this format... Someone can tell me that?

[coldrain]

The problem with a format from microsoft.. is that it is from microsoft.
It is not going to be an "open" standard. You need to agree to licenses before you can even look at this file format.

And they for some reason did not use the TIFF format, although they used all TIFF tags... TIFF allows for other compressors to be used... yet MS did not choose to do that. They rather again make their own proprietary format... like always. Why?

To do what they always do. Make it standard on new MS Windows installations... so everybody starts to use it because they do not know better... resulting in websites that only work on IE for Windows. Gee... that sounds familiar. ActiveX anyone? WMF? WMA? Or just the wrong way MS implemented CSS (1/2) in IE and frontpage, so pages made with MS tools only rendered OK on IE for Windows?

Just the same old same old. Microsoft using its big userbase to keep power, to keep things only working on MS stuff.

[Shosta]

To do what they always do. Make it standard on new MS Windows installations... so everybody starts to use it because they do not know better... resulting in websites that only work on IE for Windows. Gee... that sounds familiar. ActiveX anyone? WMF? WMA? Or just the wrong way MS implemented CSS (1/2) in IE and frontpage, so pages made with MS tools only rendered OK on IE for Windows?

Two more to your list: Their own 'modified-propietary' java virtual machine. Their new format to substitute PDF (Metro Format).

[rasmithuk]

Two more to your list: Their own 'modified-propietary' java virtual machine. Their new format to substitute PDF (Metro Format).

The sooner Java craws away and dies the better. It was funny to watch Sun first sue Microsoft from changing it and then suing them for removing it from Windows. It's a badly thought out and badly implemented language that's a pain to do anything useful in.

Yeah, MS probably will screw it up by keeping it closed which is a shame as it looks like quite a cool format. Just like RAW files, nice idea, pity about the companies locking everyone else out.

The licence you have to agree to is pretty standard, it's basically saying that it's their so don't rip it off and don't sue them if anything changes since it isn't finished yet. It is a pity that there's no propper specs yet, the doc the licence protects is just outline details, nothing useful from an implementation angle.

[Shosta]

The sooner Java craws away and dies the better.
That's an opinion. Mine is that more competition the better. And I know well both worlds Microsoft on one side and the others. Not just Sun: Oracle, Bea, IBM, ...

[Turo]

The sooner Java craws away and dies the better. It was funny to watch Sun first sue Microsoft from changing it and then suing them for removing it from Windows. It's a badly thought out and badly implemented language that's a pain to do anything useful in.


I am going to have to agree to disagree with you there. I don't care much for Java (mainly for performance reasons), but Ive always found that Java's API makes it easy to do just about anything with the language. There is literally a library to simplify just about any task, from network socket programming to basic sorting/searching algorithms. To my knowledge, no other language simplifies things as much as Java (but of course, I could be wrong).

[rasmithuk]

I am going to have to agree to disagree with you there. I don't care much for Java (mainly for performance reasons), but Ive always found that Java's API makes it easy to do just about anything with the language. There is literally a library to simplify just about any task, from network socket programming to basic sorting/searching algorithms. To my knowledge, no other language simplifies things as much as Java (but of course, I could be wrong).

I programmed in Java for about 4 years before it drove me insane and I escaped to other places. Its performance isn't that bad (remember C was never susposed to be used for writing app, just OSs) and having the JIT helps.

Java's library is pretty standard for all modern languages only things like C lack them and C++ makes a good stab with the STL (as screwed up as the template system is). The problem with it is that it's quite shallow in terms of features and deep in class hierachy. Requiring multiple classes to do something as simple as reading from a file gets anoying after a while.

There's also some nasty traps (swapping line delimiters on text parsing classes depending on the OS is a bug, not a feature, in my world).
Also for a langauge that claims to be web related it lacks propper support for a lot of common function (not having base64 support is weird).

Now if you want to see a language that really does have everything in it's libraries I suggest you have a look at Python :).

[Rhys]

I would support Delphi over Python but then I realised that Borland's support for wide characters can be a bit funky. I remember writing a transliterating Russian notepad that could be used with a Latin keyboard and finding that even using codepage, performance varied terribly not just between versions of Windows but between installations even (which according to the book, it shouldn't have). The best thing Windows can do is crawl away and die. My next computer is a Mac.

[rasmithuk]

Ah, good old Delphi. I spent a good few years happly programming in that all the way from version 2 (that I got for free) up to v6.
Funny thing is to any of those who think I'm a Microsoft fan my last machine, and the next one, are Macs :).
I use whatever causes me the less hassle. Linux is good for servers but just feels a bit odd for an everyday desktop. I fix and fiddle with PCs enough in my job so I really can't be bothered with it at home so using Macs solves the problem nicely. Vista's not bad so I'll probably end up using BootCamp on the next Mac.

Anyone who likes Java should have a look at any of Microsoft's CLR based languages. It's actaully a lot more open then the JVM, is nicely designed and there are open alternatives available (aka Mono).

Personally I'll use whatever language suits the job best since all of them have their uses (my current count is: AMOS, Assembly, C, C++, C#, Delphi, Java, Javascript, Python, Prolog, Ruby and VB. I'll ignore the other BASIC variants :) ).

[Rhys]

I started with Basic, Cobol, C, C++ then ended up with Delphi. Can you imagine coding a RAW decoder in Cobol :p

I'm with you as far as Linux is concerned. It's good but doesn't quite do the business for a desktop. The applications for photo processing let it down badly there.

[rasmithuk]

I started with Basic, Cobol, C, C++ then ended up with Delphi. Can you imagine coding a RAW decoder in Cobol :p

I'm with you as far as Linux is concerned. It's good but doesn't quite do the business for a desktop. The applications for photo processing let it down badly there.

COBOL, ouch. I remember getting a book on that when I was a kid. Scary stuff. :) Luckly I never had anything that would compile it so I was saved from the experiance.
That said, I still think all programmers should be taught assembly first. Makes them apreciate just how cool compilers and HLLs really are.

[Rhys]

COBOL, ouch. I remember getting a book on that when I was a kid. Scary stuff. :) Luckly I never had anything that would compile it so I was saved from the experiance.
That said, I still think all programmers should be taught assembly first. Makes them apreciate just how cool compilers and HLLs really are.

I hope you're too young to remember 6502 assembly code. It didn't help that the CPU was full of bugs!

[Turo]

That said, I still think all programmers should be taught assembly first. Makes them apreciate just how cool compilers and HLLs really are.
I'm a fairly young programmer (started about 6 years ago), and I agree with you there. I don't know much assembly, but the little that I had to do in college REALLY makes me appreciate all those high level languages! :)

[rasmithuk]

I hope you're too young to remember 6502 assembly code. It didn't help that the CPU was full of bugs!

I'm pretty sure I missed that one. The first assembly I got to play with was the Motorola 68000. Not a bad one, apart from a few little traps here and there (timed interupts had a minimum resolution that it didn't bother to tell you about in the manual).
Debugging on embeded boards is an 'interesting' lesson too. A whole eight bits of output could make debugging a little tricky at times :).