Digital Home Thoughts: HD Photo to become JPEG XR

"This is a pretty exciting day for all of us working on HD Photo. Today, the Joint Photographic Expert's Group (JPEG) announced a new work item for the standardization of a HD Photo as a new file format called JPEG XR (XR is short for "extended range".) You can read the full details in the Microsoft press release here and the JPEG press release here. (Go ahead and check it out; we'll wait here.) Wow! Our group at Microsoft's Core Media Processing Team has been working on HD Photo for over five years. The underlying compression technology is based on work from Microsoft Research that goes back even farther than that. Since our first public disclosures about "Windows Media Photo" (the original name of HD Photo), our goal has been to develop the ultimate successor to JPEG as the format of choice for all digital photography. We also announced earlier this year that we were committed to standardizing HD Photo as an open format. With today's announcements, we're moving a lot closer to both of those goals."



Looks like after years of work, there's a new JPEG standard on the horizon. What does it all mean? Better looking pictures than the current JPEG standard, at half the file size. Pictures can be compressed losslessly, with all the quality of RAW image files, but at only 40% of the file size. HDR (High Dynamic Resolution) is supported, allowing a broader color range and finer color gradients; as well as 32-bit compression, compared to JPEG's 24-bit maximum. All good things, though it's at least a year off.