[TETENAL]

Microsoft has invented the better JPEG – called Windows Media Photo – with numerous advantages over the old file format like the option for lossless compression, twice the compression efficiency than JPEG, multiple colour formats and whatever. The new format is quickly becoming standard in digital imaging devices and on the internet ⇒ Apple is screwed! JPEG2000 – another attempt for JPEG improvement – never took off and Apple itself does have nothing like this.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphoto.mspx

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

⇒ Apple is screwed!

Apple death knell prediction # 127,795,125,125

-t

[wataru]

Nevermind. More MS BS.

[::maroma::]

Oh snap! Microsoft finally found Apple's achilles heal! And its a JPEG!!

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by wataru

The is no incentive to support this.

The incentive to support this is that this exactly fills the gap between JPEG and RAW. So I can see many manufacturers of consumer digital cameras supporting this file format.

[Spliffdaddy]

Don't worry. I'm sure Apple will adopt Microsoft's new image standard.

They already adopted Intel's new processors.

[CharlesS]

It's been obvious for years that this would eventually happen. Why else do you think they wouldn't have fixed IE's PNG implementation for so long?

[andi*pandi]

did they develop this while they were ignoring PNG support in IE?

[CharlesS]

Oh, and you've gotta love the names Microsoft chooses for things. I mean, look at the existing image formats and how you'd pronounce them:

GIF - "gif" or "jif", depending on what side of the holy wars you're on - 1 syllable
JPEG - "j-peg", 2 syllables
PNG - "ping", 1 syllable
TIFF - exactly how it looks, 1 syllable
RAW - exactly how it looks, 1 syllable

And now...

Windows Media Photo - 7 syllables. Or you could say "double-yoo emm pee" for 5 syllables (4 if you live in Texas).

Who wants to bet that this thing ends up being commonly referred to as "wimp" if it catches on?

[olePigeon]

They could be using JPEG 2000, but they didn't want to license it. This way they can "embrace and extend" as usual. Offer the exact same features as JPEG 2000, but make it free. After everyone adopts it, charge a license fee that's 3x more than JPEG 2000.

OT: Forgot to mention that WMP will probably be crippled with DRM and only work with Windows.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Oh, and you've gotta love the names Microsoft chooses for things. I mean, look at the existing image formats and how you'd pronounce them:

GIF - "gif" or "jif", depending on what side of the holy wars you're on - 1 syllable
JPEG - "j-peg", 2 syllables
PNG - "ping", 1 syllable
TIFF - exactly how it looks, 1 syllable
RAW - exactly how it looks, 1 syllable

And now...

Windows Media Photo

You mean... "Windows Media Photo 2006 Premium Edition", surely?

[Y3a]

And WHERE are they gonna find a PC Graphics station?

[davesimondotcom]

Nothing like having a file format that everyone will end up calling a "wimp."

"Hey, could you send me a wimp?"

"My fancy new digital camera takes pictures in three formats: jay-peg, raw and wimp."

Seriously, there is a lot to a name, and nobody wants to use a wimpy format. RAW sounds so much cooler.

Graphic format pronounciation guide:

JPG or JPEG - "Jay-Peg"
GIF - "jif" like in "choosy moms choose jiff"
PNG - "ping"
WMP - "wimp"

Now obviously "ping" is the most fun to say...

Microsoft and their names - first "Windows CE" became "Wince" now this... all from the company that brought you Bob.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Windows Media Photo - 7 syllables. Or you could say "double-yoo emm pee" for 5 syllables (4 if you live in Texas).

Not to mention that WMP already exists for a product that is far too close to this one for the two names to coexist peacefully: Windows Media Player.

(The name part wouldn’t be true in this part of the world, though: JPG and PNG are both spelled out here, so three syllables; and w is nearly almost read as v in abbreviations, so WMP would just be read as VMP, still three syllables. But that’s just us silly Danes)

[::maroma::]

WMP = Window Media Player

WMP = Windows Media Photo

Hey Microsoft, do you have so many piece of sh!t products that you've forgotten your anagrams?

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

The incentive to support this is that this exactly fills the gap between JPEG and RAW.

The same was true of JPEG2000, yet it never took off. This won't either.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Millennium

The same was true of JPEG2000, yet it never took off. This won't either.

JPEG 2000 didn't have 90% of the computing market to strongarm a new format on.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

GIF - "gif" or "jif", depending on what side of the holy wars you're on - 1 syllable

I never even knew that there was a holy war over that, I always assumed it was pronounced 'gif' with a hard g, the other way just sounds stupid and only a moron would pronounce it as 'jif'.

[SpaceMonkey]

Where exactly "on the internet" is this format becoming "standard"? I have yet to see it. And Apple does have something like it: PNG.

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Forgot to mention that WMP will probably be crippled with DRM and only work with Windows.

Which means that anyone who is serious about content creation will avoid it like the plague. Sure, novice digital camera users might be suckered into it at first, but they'll learn fast. I've already seen a lot of complaining on iPod-focused forums from people who naively used to rip their CDs in Windows Media Player, which defaults to copy-protected WMA, only to find out that they can't use an iPod without re-ripping their entire collection.

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by PacHead

I never even knew that there was a holy war over that, I always assumed it was pronounced 'gif' with a hard g, the other way just sounds stupid and only a moron would pronounce it as 'jif'.

I'm with you on that, since the G stands for graphic then a hard G makes more sense.

[mdc]

Originally Posted by Oisín

(The name part wouldn’t be true in this part of the world, though: JPG and PNG are both spelled out here, so three syllables; and w is nearly almost read as v in abbreviations, so WMP would just be read as VMP, still three syllables. But that’s just us silly Danes)

I was going to ask if there are any other people out there who spell out PNG, pronouncing it pee-enn-gee.

[Adam Betts]

Windows Media Photo©

Name is so cool it deserved to be bold and giant

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by mdc

I was going to ask if there are any other people out there who spell out PNG, pronouncing it pee-enn-gee.

*raises hand*

-t

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by mdc

I was going to ask if there are any other people out there who spell out PNG, pronouncing it pee-enn-gee.

Only a person with a strange, counterproductiive brain would say it that way. Why choose a 3 syllable version over the damn obvious 1 syllable version ?, and besides, pee-enn-gee sounds way more nerdy.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

JPEG 2000 didn't have 90% of the computing market to strongarm a new format on.

The home market barely matters; if you want to get a stranglehold on a publishing market you need to corner the distributors, not the users or creators. That means that what Microsoft needs to go for is the Web-design market, and they don't have that.

[zmcgill]

Originally Posted by mdc

I was going to ask if there are any other people out there who spell out PNG, pronouncing it pee-enn-gee.

Same here. This was the first I've heard of 'ping.'

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by PacHead

I never even knew that there was a holy war over that, I always assumed it was pronounced 'gif' with a hard g, the other way just sounds stupid and only a moron would pronounce it as 'jif'.

I like it with the hard G too because of "Graphic", but there are plenty of people who insist that the "correct" pronunciation is "jif". A lot of the "jif" people tend to take attitudes very similar to the one you just espoused, and call anyone who pronounces it "gif" a moron. The result? Holy wars.

Here's a page that claims the inventors of the format use "jif":

http://www.olsenhome.com/gif/

Originally Posted by Gossamer

Same here. This was the first I've heard of 'ping.'

The (ugly) web page for libpng claims it's 'ping', so I'd consider that fairly official.

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Here's a page that claims the inventors of the format use "jif":

http://www.olsenhome.com/gif/

I didn't look at that link, but it really doesn't matter to me what the inventors called it for. The pronounciation of certain words is so obvious and I don't like people who try to be all fancy like idiots who have certain first or last names for example and they are supposed to be pronounced in a certain way that has nothing to do with the spelling of that name. These people are posers.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Millennium

The home market barely matters; if you want to get a stranglehold on a publishing market you need to corner the distributors, not the users or creators. That means that what Microsoft needs to go for is the Web-design market, and they don't have that.

Microsoft just needs to convince the Chinese makers of cheap digital cameras and the format will be an instant success. And then of course people will start uploading pictures in that format.

[ort888]

I say Pee Enn Gee. I have never heard PING used. Then again, no one I know uses .png files for anything. I think it comes up about once every 6 months. Usually when someone asks me what the hell a PNG file is.

Everyone says PDF. It's no worse then that.

All the girls in my office always say... "PDF me" when they want the proof emailed to them. All I ever hear is the "F me" part, and it always makes me snicker.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

Apple does have something like it: PNG.

PNG doesn't have twice the compression efficiency than JPEG. In fact it compresses worse. And PNG has zero support from makers of digital devices.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

PNG doesn't have twice the compression efficiency than JPEG. In fact it compresses worse. And PNG has zero support from makers of digital devices.

Tell them it may take a little while because of the weather, expect 6 to 8 inches.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by PacHead

Only a person with a strange, counterproductiive brain would say it that way. Why choose a 3 syllable version over the damn obvious 1 syllable version ?

English does not contain syllabic consonants in monosyllabic words, and even in polysyllabic words, where syllabic consonants do exist, they all default to a schwa sound, never an i. So you tell me how it’s “damn obvious” that the n in the consonant-only combination PNG should be pronounced as <in>. <Ping> might well be the official pronunciation, but it is not in any way logical, just as pronouncing GIF as <jif>, while apparently the original and thus more ‘correct’ pronunciation, is counterintuitive to English phonotactics.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Oisín

English does not contain syllabic consonants in monosyllabic words, and even in polysyllabic words, where syllabic consonants do exist, they all default to a schwa sound, never an i. So you tell me how it’s “damn obvious” that the n in the consonant-only combination PNG should be pronounced as <in>. <Ping> might well be the official pronunciation, but it is not in any way logical, just as pronouncing GIF as <jif>, while apparently the original and thus more ‘correct’ pronunciation, is counterintuitive to English phonotactics.

Ok fine, you speak a different tongue, so I could maybe understand somebody with a totally different language having a different 'obvious' pronounciation than an English speaker, but the morons I'm talking about are the native English speakers. They have no excuse like you do.

[Mithras]

Originally Posted by Doofy

You mean... "Windows Media Photo 2006 Premium Edition Live", surely?

fixered.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Oisín

English does not contain syllabic consonants in monosyllabic words, and even in polysyllabic words, where syllabic consonants do exist, they all default to a schwa sound, never an i. So you tell me how it’s “damn obvious” that the n in the consonant-only combination PNG should be pronounced as <in>. <Ping> might well be the official pronunciation, but it is not in any way logical, just as pronouncing GIF as <jif>, while apparently the original and thus more ‘correct’ pronunciation, is counterintuitive to English phonotactics.

It's also obvious that an 'i' fits between the P and the N and not an "a" or an "o" or an "e" or a "u". You don't hear anybody calling it PONG or PANG or PENG or PUNG I would imagine.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by PacHead

It's also obvious that an 'i' fits between the P and the N and not an "a" or an "o" or an "e" or a "u". You don't hear anybody calling it PONG or PANG or PENG or PUNG I would imagine.

"I before E except after PNG."

[BlueSky]

"Jif" is peanut butter, goddamit. It's hard G, and the inventor is simply wrong.

Ping is the way I pronounce PNG. And earl is how I pronounce URL, but I'm probably alone in that so I don't say it often 'cause people just say "what?".

[olePigeon]

I wonder how people pronounce URN for University Radio Nottingham.

[Salty]

so what do you guys pronounce http Htip? like... seriously? Jpeg is the only word I sound out because it has a vowl. When it comes to PNG, I pronounce it P N G, It's actually quicker than ping you just say it fast peengee. Oh and GIF is like Gift bit without the T.

Oh and WMP is a retarded name for a photo standard. Why is it microsoft is wanting to put this on cameras but is calling it WINDOWS? Cameras don't use Windows. Neither do Macs, and if you want to do anything in imaging you'd best get Apple on board.

[FireWire]

Originally Posted by olePigeon

OT: Forgot to mention that WMP will probably be crippled with DRM and only work with Windows.

That was my fear when I read about this.. Unfortunately, we've been burnt too many times by tricks like this (partial of no support for Mac).

Originally Posted by mdc

I was going to ask if there are any other people out there who spell out PNG, pronouncing it pee-enn-gee.

I do, but I have the excuse that I speak french "PING" wouldn't ring a bell for anyone. Of course, I pronounce it "Pay-hen-jay".

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by PacHead

It's also obvious that an 'i' fits between the P and the N and not an "a" or an "o" or an "e" or a "u". You don't hear anybody calling it PONG or PANG or PENG or PUNG I would imagine.

I agree that i is the most logic vowel to insert, that wasn’t my point; my point was just that it’s not logical to insert a vowel in the first place.

If you saw the letters PNG and didn’t know what they were, nor how they were pronounced, you wouldn’t read them as <ping>, you’d read the three letters separately, because that’s how you’ve been taught, since childhood, to read abbreviations/acronyms/etc. that consist of only consonants (and most of the ones that contain vowels as well, really).

The only reason you find it perfectly logical to pronounce PNG as <ping> is that you know (from wherever you found out) that it’s supposed to be pronounced like that.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Oisín

I agree that i is the most logic vowel to insert, that wasn’t my point; my point was just that it’s not logical to insert a vowel in the first place.

If you saw the letters PNG and didn’t know what they were, nor how they were pronounced, you wouldn’t read them as <ping>, you’d read the three letters separately, because that’s how you’ve been taught, since childhood, to read abbreviations/acronyms/etc. that consist of only consonants (and most of the ones that contain vowels as well, really).

The only reason you find it perfectly logical to pronounce PNG as <ping> is that you know (from wherever you found out) that it’s supposed to be pronounced like that.

Nt rlly, I blv t's bcs whn yr brn ss jst cnsnnts, nd t's nt n bvs bbrvtn f smthng, thn yr brn wll fll n the mssng vwls.

[Oisín]

True—but PNG is an obvious abbreviation of something. Otherwise, your brain would try to fill in a vowel in the word to get the word to make sense in the context: if you read, “he felt a sharp png in his chest”, you’d fill in an a, because ‘pang’ is the only word that makes sense. If you read, “accepted file formats are JPG, PNG, and GIF”, or indeed just “hello.png”, <ping> would be as good as <pang> or <pong>, really, since neither of them are actual words that fit in this context.

That aside, can you give me any other example of an abbreviation/acronym/etc. that doesn’t contain a vowel, but is still read as a word, rather than as consecutive letters? I can’t think of any, apart from JPG, which doesn’t count, since it’s just an abbreviated form of JPEG, which does contain a vowel.

[euphras]

Never heard of it as "Ping", in Germany it´s called "Pee En Gee"

[olePigeon]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft pronounces PNG "active-ex."

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Spliffdaddy

Don't worry. I'm sure Apple will adopt Microsoft's new image standard.

They already adopted Intel's new processors.

Next thing you know Apple will make it so you can dual-boot into Windows.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Salty

When it comes to PNG, I pronounce it P N G, It's actually quicker than ping you just say it fast peengee.

<linguist>There's no way that pronouncing pee-en-gee is faster than paying "ping". If you pronounce each at the same speed, the former will take appreciably longer. Speed-talking for one and not the other is comparing apples to dells.</linguist>

I doubt this format will make much of a dent. JPEG may be old, but it's effective, and there's not really much of a need for a format between RAW and JPEG: the advantages of RAW cannot be carried into any other format (save for DNG, which is really just a RAW container). For everything else, where the image is already processed in-camera, the differences between JPEG and, say, TIFF are too small to warrant the large file size. JPEG at top quality achieves around 1:2 compression, while losing essentially no image data.

tooki

[tooki]

Originally Posted by euphras

Never heard of it as "Ping", in Germany it´s called "Pee En Gee"

Well obviously the pronunciation is language-specific.

tooki

[Eug Wanker]

WMP = "wimp"?

If it's the same guys who are doing VC-1, then I betcha it's actually pretty good. If the format is way better than JPEG, and the licencing is cheap, then I'm all for it.