
JPEG XL could let you pack twice as many photos into your phone - cpeterso
https://www.cnet.com/news/jpeg-xl-could-let-you-pack-twice-as-many-photos-into-your-phone/
======
niftich
It's somewhat odd to suddenly see lots of excitement in the 'continuous-tone
still images' space, and I can't help but think that on some level, JPEG the
group to wants to retain relevance at a time when the world is finally looking
poised to move on from using its oldest work.

A still image file containing one frame of a video codec has been long
theorized, pushed very aggressively since 2010 by Google as WebP (i.e. VP8-in-
RIFF), and as a fully-functional thought experiment by ffmpeg's Fabrice
Bellard since 2014 in BPG (HEVC-with-custom-header), the latter of which
jumped the gun on HEIF before it was done.

Now that HEIF is here, we have a better container encapsulating an advanced
codec, and suddenly we have hardware support with premium phones generating
files in this format. The barrier is HEVC's hefty licensing pool, but a
parallel effort exists in AVIF [1], which takes a frame of the royalty-free,
HEVC-competitor AV1 video codec, and stuffs it into a HEIF container.

It seems a bit superfluous for JPEG to barge into this space _right now_ ; I'm
confident they'll do technically solid, and even innovative work, but
proliferating an incompatible implementation right when it looks like there's
a realistic chance of a newer still-image codec replacing one that dates back
to 1992 is a bit counterproductive.

But perhaps I should be more optimistic. Their calls-for-proposal document [2]
lays out recent competitors, admits their technical merits, but concludes that
they're not in widespread use. Then, it lays out that their vision to produce
a state-of-the-art format that will achieve widespread adoption, helped by a
"royalty-free baseline".

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803363)
[2] [https://jpeg.org/downloads/jpegxl/jpegxl-
draft_cfp.pdf](https://jpeg.org/downloads/jpegxl/jpegxl-draft_cfp.pdf)

~~~
m0dest
>A still image file containing one frame of a video codec has been long
theorized

The I-frame encoding in MPEG-1 was basically identical to baseline JPEG. The
compressed frames can be losslessly converted to JPEG and vice-versa. So, in a
sense, we were already there.

Reusing the I-frame compression from a video codec is the only strategy that
makes sense for a lossy still image codec. Video codecs are where the major
innovation is happening, with wide participation from every player in the
industry, and a large part of the innovation has been around improving I-frame
efficiency. They're being hardware optimized and baked into software
implementations. And even when patents are involved, still image codecs are
usually able to piggyback on the video codec licenses that are already on the
device.

~~~
ksec
It is interesting that H.262 ( MPEG 2 ) > H.263 ( Divx ) > H.264 ( AVC ) >
H.265 (HEVC )

That is 4 generation a video codec improvement, and yet as an image format,
MPEG 1 based Jpeg is still doing very well compared to latest HEIF. I mean
four generation of improvement and we only got 50% reduction at similar
quality. Why is it still image don't scale down as well as video?

~~~
niftich
Because many of the gains of successive video codecs comes from finding more
efficient ways of encoding _motion_ , which is something you clearly can't
exploit with stills.

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bonyt
A lot of people have already (unknowingly) produced a ton of HEIF photos. It’s
the default on newer versions of iOS I believe.

~~~
vwcx
It's a great surprise to realize you've been shooting HEIFs for months and
then can't open them on your MBP because you're "only" on El Capitan.

~~~
djrogers
That shouldn't be a surprise, because in order for that to happen you'd have
to disable the compatible export option in iOS that's on by default. Unless
you used some 3rd party image transfer that wasn't as thoughtful?

~~~
ASalazarMX
The default Formats setting for the built-in camera app is "High efficiency",
which saves as HEIF/HEIVC. You have to change it to "Most compatible" to use
JPEG/H.264.

~~~
djrogers
The default export option is ‘automatic’ which converts to jpeg when exporting
to anything other than new Apple OS devices. The format for taking the photos
is irrelevant.

~~~
ASalazarMX
That's in the Photos app settings. I have no idea if Google Photos does
automatic conversion too.

I think someone mentioned before in this thread the syncing between Android
and iPhone using Google Photos and finding the format incompatible on Android.

------
greggarious
Isn't part of the issue the network effect, not the file format?

(We can develop a whizzbang new compression algorithm, but unless Windows,
macOS, iOS, Android, and all the flavors of Linux add support it can't go
beyond the device)

~~~
MBCook
I’d say so. That was one of the things that killed JPEG2000. Even if people
bought encoders no one could view it anyway so it was useless.

EDIT: Comr to think of it this was the problem with APNG trying to replace
GIF. Everything supports GIF, no one supported APNG (relative to GIF) so it
never really gained traction.

Even though 75% of users have a browser that supports it the format has no
mindshare so no one uses it.

~~~
ksec
It is interesting the JPEG CFP pdf note JPEG2000 as being widely successful,
when it is barely used outside certain domain. And it names JPEG2000 being
royalty free, but on Wikipedia they mention they problem of patents. And it is
only free for baseline ( Whatever that means )

~~~
mattkrause
DICOM, a medical imaging format (meta-format? The spec is a beast) supports
JPEG2000 compression. There are a _lot_ of DICOM files kicking around, though
annoying not every device can write files with JPEG2000 compression, nor can
every reader actually interpret them.

I also had a no-name digital camera that inexplicably supported JPEG2000.

Other than that, I’m don’t think I’ve seen it much in the wild.

~~~
derf_
It's supported in Safari (c.f. JPEG XR in Edge and WebP in Chrome).

It is also used for digital cinema distribution. It was chosen for that role
specifically because it was not in widespread use.

------
kalleboo
Who remembers when ~~JPEG2000~~JPEG XR was going to be the next big thing?

~~~
ComputerGuru
FWIW Patents killed those, not lack of quality or interest.

~~~
derf_
There were patent concerns when they were first released, but AFAIK they were
all eventually resolved. The issue really was lack of (perceived) quality.
Despite their amazing PSNR scores, wavelets _look_ terrible at low bitrates,
in ways that DCT-based codecs do not. JPEG XR has a few more features than
JPEG, but not really much better quality [1].

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160404051240/http://people.moz...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160404051240/http://people.mozilla.org/~josh/lossy_compressed_image_study_july_2014/)

------
ksec
HEIF already does similar compression to this JPEG XL now, which is at least 2
- 3 years away.

We need something even better, compressing 150Kb Jpeg, a common image size on
the internet, to 50Kb with similar or better quality.

I hope we do better with next gen video codec VVC.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Heif is now the default camera format on iPhones, ensuring that it is the
winner of the next gen format race before it even started.

Everything will have to support heif, or lose every iPhone owner as a user.

~~~
ksec
Well, that is assuming everyone will support HEVC, which Google seems to be
the major force opposing it. Youtube won't use HEVC.

~~~
LeoPanthera
It's irrelevant what YouTube uses behind the scenes, since they don't
(officially) offer a download service. It always plays in the browser or the
app.

You can _upload_ HEVC to YouTube just fine, and it works. So in the only way
that counts, they do support it.

~~~
ksec
But they won't "encode" HEVC. They are only offering AVC, VP9 and very likely
AV1. With any 4K or 2K+ content only available in VP9 / AV1.

The battle between AV1 and HEVC is not set. And so is the battle between HEIF
and AVIF. HEVC have the upper hand right now. But that doesn't mean it has
already won. iPhone does allow auto convert to Jpeg for compatibility reason.

So if you cant guarantee HEVC licensing issues revolved, and not having Google
on board, HEIC will just be another internal format being used by Apple and
Apple only. No Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Android support. ( Although Microsoft
seems to be on board )

------
voltagex_
What's the patent situation for JPEG XL?

~~~
niftich
_" This new JPEG activity aims to develop a new image coding standard that
provides state-of-the-art image compression performance, and that addresses
shortcomings in current standards. To encourage widespread adoption, an
important goal for this standard is to support a royalty-free baseline."_ [1]

[1] [https://jpeg.org/downloads/jpegxl/jpegxl-
draft_cfp.pdf](https://jpeg.org/downloads/jpegxl/jpegxl-draft_cfp.pdf)

~~~
ksec
It turns out JPEG2000 is also royalty free baseline. So that statement changes
nothing.

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kevin_b_er
How badly patent encumbered is this one?

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donatj
How’s it compare to a Guetzli’d JPEG?

~~~
therealmarv
JPEG XL is a new standard. Guetzli is a (extreme) compression approach for the
existing standard.

~~~
donatj
I'm aware. I'm asking how image quality to file size compares.

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distantsounds
How about JPEG2000? WebP? BPG?

~~~
klodolph
* JPEG 2000 is basically dead in the water. It does not offer substantial advantages over JPEG for common use cases.

* WebP is a good alternative.

* BPG has potential licensing problems.

~~~
masklinn
HEIF, same idea as BPG (use HEVC intra-frames as images) but by the HEVC
group, and already supported natively by Windows, OSX, iOS and Android.

~~~
klodolph
HEIF is already successful and in widespread usage.

~~~
mtgx
Only by virtue of Apple adopted it for its hundreds of millions of devices,
but you could make the same case for anything Apple alone adopts. That alone
doesn't make it a standard.

I for one hope the web will end up adopting the Netflix-backed, AV1-based, and
royalty-free AVIF:

[https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/](https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/)

~~~
MBCook
Same argument for Google’s VP9. It has TONS of users because of YouTube.

People complain _that’s_ a standard and Apple needs to support it.

No difference.

But as others have said, MS is supporting HEIF on Windows too.

