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Is WebP really better than JPEG?

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Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#151

Post by donatj »

derefr wrote: post #146
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shades of IE6 Stockholm syndrome.

Very different problems. Many ISVs were stuck supporting IE6 for so long—long after it went into single-digit percentage usage—not out of some vague fear that someone, somewhere still used it; but because the particular moribund enterprise clients that they wanted to sell into still used it. (Otherwise, IE6 would have been just another irrelevant minority browser, like Opera.) Mobile Safari, meanwhile, is "still" use…

The IE6 problem is the same reason I'm currently stuck supporting IE11. The vague fear that we don't want to cut off like 3% of our users.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#152

Post by leni536 »

TylerE wrote: post #127
moring wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the web you can do it with SVG.

https://github.com/leni536/trans_jpg

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#153

Post by thomasfortes »

reaperducer wrote: post #59
barkerja wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WEBP support has been added to the next version of Safari (14).

WEBP support has been added to the next version of Safari (14). Good to hear. But that still means it'll still be 1½ years before enough users in the wild are on iOS 14 to make the change without breaking the sites for a large number of people. At least, from what I read, iOS upgrade adoption is very quick compared with other platforms. WebP is something to look forward to on my company's internal projects, but exter…

IE11 supports the figure element, so it is possible to use webp and have a fallback to the png or jpeg, but since I already use figure for multiple image sizes I will support webp with fallbacks for a while...

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#154

Post by Scaevolus »

ksec wrote: post #98

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_compar…

VVC is definitely not going to be royalty free, and it's unlikely its intra coding will compete with JPEG XL for the same target (relatively high bitrate high quality images).

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#155

Post by rokweom »

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…

It's the same situation with VP9. It's supposed to be a competitor to HEVC, but in reality lack of serious psychovisual optimizations in any of the publicly available encoders make it at best on par with x264 compression-wise, while being significantly more computationally expensive.

Its only appeal is that it's royalty-free, but since all devices that support VP9 decoding also support h.264, is it really worth it?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#157

Post by baxtr »

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…

What’s interesting is that Google’s Lighthouse tool for measuring site speed pushes for “Next Gen” image formats like WebP. But I often find that WebP files are larger than jpg, too. Yet Lighthouse recommends it. And, of course it’s a great idea to follow Google’s advice since they include the Lighthouse score in their ranking algorithm.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#158

Post by acd »

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…

I think BPG should be standardized since it provides very good image compression better than Webp.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#159

Post by twotwotwo »

JPEG XL is worth mentioning here. It includes a JPEG1 repacker (Brunsli) that saves about 20% and allows recovering the original file exactly. All that existing JPEG1 content isn't going anywhere, so that seems good. It has some other neat features like the ability to mix a DCT-based codec with lossless (modular) mode in an image. Its lossless/modular mode (successor to FLIF/FUIF) is interesting on its own.

It can be illuminating to stretch codecs a bit past the visually-indistinguishable threshold, both to better nail down where that threshold is and to see how annoying the artifacts you end up with are. Lots of comparisons you can do; this is a fun one: https://encode.su/threads/3108-Google-s-compression-proje%D1...

At very few bits-per-pixel like the first (bridge) image, everything has some artifacts. On that image AVIF tends to just blur lower contrast areas, whereas HEIC produces some visible ringing (faint lines that weren't there before) around the bridge. Unlike JXL, AVIF and HEIC both have spatial prediction (extend pixels above/to the left of this block in whatever direction), which is particularly helpful with straight sharp lines like the bridge image happens to have. I wouldn't put too much stock in results on that one image, but I do like being able to judge results subjectively.

(FWIW, a presentation on JPEG XL suggested they were targeting the equivalent of ~2bpp JPEG quality[0], so perhaps performance in this super-low range wasn't as much of a priority.)

Anyway, I hope both these formats get wide support, because they each have clear benefits in some application: JXL's include the upgrade path for JPEG1 content and the multiple modes, and AVIF may be able to salvage a bit more quality at super low bitrates. AV1 (on which AVIF is based) has wide industry backing, and the JPEG XL effort is also going for a royalty-free codec and has support from Google, so hopeful they actually will be usable relatively soon.

(Although HEIC's images are OK and it has Apple's support already, it's patent-encumbered, limiting what you or I can do with it.)

[0]: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of...

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#160

Post by chrismorgan »

ksec wrote: post #103
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…

And that is the reason why I dont like Open Media Alliance in General. Not only does the best JPEG encoder perform as good if not better than the best WebP encoder. With a JPEG Repacker [1] JPEG file size could easily be 20% smaller. If you have to support a new format with relatively little benefits, why not just support using the repacked instead. [1] https://github.com/google/brunsli

What has AOMedia to do with this? That alliance is what has made AV1 (and thus AVIF), which is clearly superior to JPEG. AOMedia had nothing to do with WebP (though Google is a member, and WebP is based on VP8, and AV1 is based in part on VP9 which was the successor to VP8).
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