Is WebP really better than JPEG? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#121

Post by MaxBarraclough » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

pixelbath wrote: post #9

Subjectively, I'd say at those settings the WebP versions look slightly worse, though they don't suffer from the blocking artifacts native to JPEG. For the images I serve on my sites, a few KB here and there aren't going to make a huge difference, and I'd rather avoid the hassle of serving content that isn't universally supported.

Take a look at the Kodim 3 example image, either the '500px' version or the '1500px' (but not the '1500px' version).

Zoom in (400%) on the cap of the yellow hat. The lines of the cap are muddied under all lossy compressed formats, but surprisingly, plain old cjpeg does so less than the others.

Generally though I find the new formats look better than JPEG.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#122

Post by gsich » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #86

Every time I run an image comparison, the webp version looks worse and yet Google insists it's the same quality. It's baffling. Even if the above were just an individual... bafflement? and not an actual issue, the size savings really don't seem worth the compatibility hassle, the extra manpower/workflow complexity to support 2 formats, the additional storage (and caching) caused by this duplication. And the above is…

I also don't get it why people insist on the same quality with lesser size. How about more quality and the same filesize?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#123

Post by aliceryhl » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

You can make a lossless webp from a png. I use this on my site, and it consistently results in smaller images than what I get from png.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#124

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

moring wrote: post #117

JimDabell wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue the toss over quality, but JPEG can't do transparency while WebP can. So if you need transparency, you need to compare the size savings to PNG, not JPEG. WebP is the clear winner there.

If transparency was the main issue, adding transparency to JPEG sounds easier than coming up with a completely new encoding, especially a lossy one.

clearly we need to dig in past work to find who tried that

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#125

Post by grishka » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

zspitzer wrote: post #80

One of the biggest barriers against adoption of these newer formats is the lack of pure java implementations for use server side. The Java wrappers around a native binary are helpful, but for many projects not very useful and this hinders adoption. https://github.com/haraldk/TwelveMonkeys/issues?q=is%3Aissue...

Using Java code for things that are this performance critical doesn't feel like a good idea. It will work of course, but it will probably GC a lot, and while modern JVMs do JIT, the code they generate can't be as optimal as something that has manual SIMD optimizations.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#126

Post by MaxBarraclough » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

gsich wrote: post #122

gruturo wrote: post #86

Every time I run an image comparison, the webp version looks worse and yet Google insists it's the same quality. It's baffling. Even if the above were just an individual... bafflement? and not an actual issue, the size savings really don't seem worth the compatibility hassle, the extra manpower/workflow complexity to support 2 formats, the additional storage (and caching) caused by this duplication. And the above is…

I also don't get it why people insist on the same quality with lesser size. How about more quality and the same filesize?

> people insist on the same quality with lesser size.

Because a great proportion of people browsing the web have slow connections and/or data caps.

> How about more quality and the same filesize?

We're already able to get acceptable quality.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#127

Post by TylerE » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

moring wrote: post #117

JimDabell wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue the toss over quality, but JPEG can't do transparency while WebP can. So if you need transparency, you need to compare the size savings to PNG, not JPEG. WebP is the clear winner there.

If transparency was the main issue, adding transparency to JPEG sounds easier than coming up with a completely new encoding, especially a lossy one.

How? Do you know how many binaries link to some old version of libjpeg? You're breaking 99.9% of the world and 80% of it is stuff that can't even be recompiled, probably.

In fact, JPEG 2000, which was standardized, in, well, 2000, already has transparency support, and 20 years later still have no meaningful support.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#128

Post by TylerE » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

gsich wrote: post #122

gruturo wrote: post #86

Every time I run an image comparison, the webp version looks worse and yet Google insists it's the same quality. It's baffling. Even if the above were just an individual... bafflement? and not an actual issue, the size savings really don't seem worth the compatibility hassle, the extra manpower/workflow complexity to support 2 formats, the additional storage (and caching) caused by this duplication. And the above is…

I also don't get it why people insist on the same quality with lesser size. How about more quality and the same filesize?

PNG already exists.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#129

Post by ocdtrekkie » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

WebP would never have been adopted and nobody would care about it if it wasn't developed by the owner of the world's largest browser and the world's largest website (which ranks everyone else based in part on what formats and conventions they use), who has the ability to implement it on both sides, and force everyone to care.

WebP is a blatant example of how monopoly power is used to push bad things upon everyone else, and as seen here, for literally no good technical reason.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#130

Post by snoo5780 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #23

snoo5780 wrote: post #11

Does anyone have insight as to whether this same evaluation re:AVIF applies to WebM? Edit: saw somewhere that it is used in production for real-time video, but had trouble using rav1e as opposed to libvpx

Yes: Google heavily promoted their format but unless you’re serving a high volume of traffic it’s not worth the cost of doubling your storage and maintaining a separate toolchain to lower your transfer by perhaps 10%. By now more devices have hardware support so its performance is more competitive but at this point I’d go straight to AV1.

Perhaps should clarify. Much of the reaction appears to be to Safari support for WebP. Those reacting believe that WebP will stick around even though used VP8 (Could have just hurdled straight to AV1). So curious to ask if those same people reacting think WebM will also stick around longer. It’s a bit different since WebM uses VP9, but, there perhaps there are still potential issues, and personally not know about browser landscape/hardware support.