Microsoft's 'new JPEG' to get standards vote

Microsoft's alternative to the ubiquitous JPEG image format could soon become a standard, a major step in the company's ambitions to spread the technology and boost its Vista operating system.

In coming months, 16 national standards groups will formally vote on whether the Joint Photographic Experts Group, after which the JPEG file format is named, should make Microsoft's relatively new HD Photo format a standard.

Getting to this stage is a good sign in Microsoft's view, and the company has hopes the format will be accepted as a standard called JPEG XR by mid-2008, said Robert Rossi, principal programme manager at Microsoft for emerging image and video technology.

Rossi said: "The fact that this happened is a very strong endorsement. It's very rare for this to be reversed in the formalities that happen between now and October." Microsoft had already declared its standardisation intent but had kept quiet on the details.

JPEG standardisation could improve the format's prospects, said InfoTrends analyst Ed Lee. "That helps the potential future of the standard significantly," he said. With an open standard it will be easier to win allies such as camera makers and competitors "won't feel as wary about adopting it", he added.

Microsoft hopes the format will put its products squarely in the centre of people's digital doings. Windows Vista has built-in support for the file format.

Rossi said: "It's going to make Vista more attractive as an operating system to use."

Microsoft has found some partners for JPEG XR. Among those who have endorsed the technology are high-end camera maker Hasselblad, camera image sensor start-up Foveon, and ARM and Novatek Microelectronics - two companies whose chip designs are used for image processing in cameras. Earlier this year, Microsoft won praise from image-editing software powerhouse Adobe Systems.

Standardisation doesn't guarantee success, however. JPEG 2000, a successor to JPEG that came from the same standards group, has been a dud in mainstream consumer markets even though it offered better compression quality. But it has become an option in some specific niche markets such as digital cinema, medical imaging, and mapping and geographic information systems.

The JPEG organisation said in a statement many of those standards are independent of the encoding scheme. That means that JPEG XR has the potential to unify the more industrial realm of JPEG 2000 and the consumer world of conventional JPEG.

The JPEG organisation also praised Microsoft's decision to give free access to any of its patents that bear on JPEG XR. The organisation said: "Microsoft's royalty-free commitment will help the JPEG committee foster widespread adoption of the specification and help ensure that it can be implemented by the widest possible audience," encouraging others to take that approach when trying to set standards.

Stephen Shankland writes for CNET News.com