
BPG Image Format Specification - fezz
http://bellard.org/bpg/bpg_spec.txt
======
fezz
article on BPG: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195856-bpg-a-new-
superi...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195856-bpg-a-new-superior-
image-format-that-really-ought-to-kill-off-jpeg)

image comparison: [http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-bugfixes/#77-bombay-
str...](http://xooyoozoo.github.io/yolo-octo-bugfixes/#77-bombay-
street&jpg=s&bpg=s)

~~~
vitd
Very nice image comparison! I'm pretty impressed with the very low-end
settings of this codec compared to JPEG. I put JPEG on "Large" and BPG on
"Tiny" and honestly, the results were pretty close. Nowhere near as bad as
JPEG set to tiny. And surprisingly, no banding in large smooth gradients like
with JPEG.

~~~
fezz
I wonder if that's simply a debanding filter on decode.

~~~
mangix
debanding filter is required by h264. probably the same for h265.

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ant6n
This made me look up
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard).
Creator of FFmpeg and QEMU. And quite a few other accomplishments. Impressive.

~~~
kozukumi
Fabrice is a wizard no doubt!

~~~
batmansmk
He is the kind of really smart guy who makes code that looks obvious when you
read it. BPG compiles smoothly, the code base is easy to understand. And
that's also the brilliant part of it.

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AshleysBrain
Related: [http://flif.info/](http://flif.info/) (a different new image format)

~~~
hckr1292
I love that the flif format is totally free, which seems to be the main
painpoint here with BPG. However:

1) It doesn't seem very compelling without lossy compression. Moreover, the
recommended way to get a lossy version is to use `dd` on a flif file...

2) Even in the FLIF examples, BPG _always_ looks the best:
[http://flif.info/example.html](http://flif.info/example.html) strikingly so.

This makes me think that, even if using HEVC is a bad idea, reusing video
codecs might be a rich source of innovation for image compression.

~~~
legulere
It's not totally free. It's bound to the GPLv3 and thus has no chance of being
included into any standard browser.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Thats the code's licence, not the file format's, so they'd only need to write
a decoder (or ask that the decoder be re-licensed).

~~~
legulere
There's no specification, so you would have to do a clean room
reimplementation.

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corysama
Was it ever sorted out if using this format was likely to get you sued by HEVC
patent owners?

~~~
hckr1292
TL;DR, maybe! From the main BPG website:

 _Licensing_

...

 _Some of the HEVC algorithms may be protected by patents in some countries
(read the FFmpeg Patent Mini-FAQ for more information). Most devices already
include or will include hardware HEVC support, so we suggest to use it if
patents are an issue._

[http://bellard.org/bpg/](http://bellard.org/bpg/)

~~~
TD-Linux
>hardware HEVC support, so we suggest to use it if patents are an issue.

This will not save you from the HEVC Advance content fees, which are a
percentage of your website's total revenue related to the images.

~~~
okigan
So, for websites that do not charge -- it is zero ? (ex. wikipedia)

If so, almost sounds like the reason to use it on free websites, so paid for
ones do not steal your images

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mixmastamyk
Is it a free format? Or patent encumbered? It mentions H.265...

~~~
robert_foss
It's based on HEVC which means that many of the patents that cover HEVC will
cover BPG.

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jrcii
This guy is a freakin genius. I think last time I was on his site he had
published a full working LTE stack.

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hckr1292
I'm about 99% sure that Fabrice handwrote the html on his main page for BPG:
[http://bellard.org/bpg/](http://bellard.org/bpg/)

The bold choice of 0 CSS just gives this idea even more credibility than it
already had.

~~~
teach
Is writing HTML by hand weird? I've been doing so for all my personal sites
since 1995 and I haven't needed to do anything differently yet.

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johnjac
Am the only one who was expecting something network related, just for a
second?

