Is WebP really better than JPEG? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#91

Post by NovemberWhiskey » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

Y-bar wrote: post #49

izacus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a proprietary patent-encumbered format which isn't really widely supported in the web browsers.

Patent-encumbered? Yes. > proprietary No. It is an open standard (ISO/IEC 23008)

Oh - so actually AVIF (as discussed in the original article) is an HEIF container with AV1 as the codec, and HEIC is the same but with H.265.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#92

Post by nine_k » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #84

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

can be supported in any browser via a Javascript I think you answered your own question right there. I'm not going to use a dumptruck to bring a single sack of sand to my garden.

For an image gallery, the balance could be the opposite: a small (56k) download of a decoder allowing to show many large (a few megs each) pictures.

I wonder how good the performance of that decoder is, though; if the decoding delay is much longer that the network transfer delay, the approach becomes much less appealing.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#93

Post by oefrha » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

Of course any format can be decoded in js or wasm, that’s not an advantage and doesn’t tell us anything. The most important thing for a format is probably vendor buy-in. Why would anyone choose this over HEIF, which also uses HEVC (optional), is backed by MPEG (like it or not, MPEG represents the industry), and has vendor buy-in from Apple and Google? (I know it’s not supported in the browsers, at least not yet, but you can also use a library.)

Also, the latest news entry:

> (Apr 21 2018) Release 0.9.8 is available

Edit: Spoke too soon. “Official” HEIF JavaScript port measures ~500-600k gzipped, so 56k gzipped is an advantage.

https://github.com/nokiatech/heif/tree/gh-pages/js

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#94

Post by nine_k » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

Those are not the key features :(

Key questions: (1) Is it encumbered by any patents? (2) Does a formal description of the algorithm exists, to allow for independent implementations? (3) Does a MIT/BSD or at least LGPL implementation exist? (4) Has it been submitted for standardization?

Technical merits are of limited value if you can't deploy them.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#95

Post by robertoandred » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

frei wrote: post #85

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

This is kind of neat, but when I think of "HEVC-based image codec" I think of Apple's .heic format. Unfortunately I didn't see a high-level comparison to HEIC on Bellard's site, so I'm not sure what the advantages of BPG are. Wouldn't I want to use the more common format?

It's not Apple's format, it's MPEG's.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#96

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #84

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

can be supported in any browser via a Javascript I think you answered your own question right there. I'm not going to use a dumptruck to bring a single sack of sand to my garden.

can is not the same as must ... there is absolutely the possibility of adding support as a binary implementation, especially with the relatively short turn around of green browsers. IE11 and Safari are the last of the old guard on this and mobile devices have a 2-3 year burnout in terms of support.

Not to mention it could be feature detected via browser, js and other means as an interim solution. Also, I'm pretty sure the implementation is wasm with a very thin JS shim, at least that would be my presumption as I'm not familiar with this format/project.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#97

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #94

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

Those are not the key features :( Key questions: (1) Is it encumbered by any patents? (2) Does a formal description of the algorithm exists, to allow for independent implementations? (3) Does a MIT/BSD or at least LGPL implementation exist? (4) Has it been submitted for standardization? Technical merits are of limited value if you can't deploy them.

Apparently LGPL, while not ideal for redistribution should be enough for general usage.

https://github.com/mirrorer/libbpg

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#98

Post by ksec » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

In my opinion, the true contender to JPEG is JPEG XL. [1], where is has better quality than even AVIF at >0.5 bpp ( Bits per Pixel ) [2].

But the truly amazing next generation VVC manage to compress image with even better ratio than JPEG XL.

Both JPEG XL and VVC is expected to be finalised in July/Augest. JPEG XL will be royalty free. VVC as usual is lots of unknown.

[1]https://cloudinary.com/blog/how_jpeg_xl_compares_to_other_im...

[2] https://medium.com/@scopeburst/mozjpeg-comparison-44035c42ab...

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#99

Post by cptskippy » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

> Note that Mozilla somewhat walked back from this and implemented WebP support for Firefox in 2019

I wouldn't call the decision to support a format 6 years after first evaluating it a walk back, it's a concession that the format has been adopted by the industry. If the most popular browser supports WebP and sites are using it, it makes sense that you should support it.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#100

Post by pornel » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

zmix wrote: post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

It's great in terms of compression (close to half size of WebP for comparable quality), but:

• In countries with software patents it's illegal to use BPG without a patent license for the H.265 codec, and that patent pool is a mess. Someone needs to do BPG with AV1 payload, or just wait for browsers to finish implementing AVIF.

• JavaScript adds significant latency. Browsers request native images before running any JS, so even an infinitely fast JS polyfill already starts from a losing position. On top of that, low-end devices are likely to spend more time and energy on running the JS decoder than on downloading a larger JPEG.