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Is WebP really better than JPEG?

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Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#231

Post by asciident »

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…

Safari users seem to update very quickly (based on stats about iOS and MacOS update timelines). I've already got some desktop-oriented websites that are WebP only, and once Safari supports WebP on iOS, I'll finish transitioning them all.

The space savings is quite nice for my bandwidth bills (my websites don't have video, so I estimate saving about 20% in bandwidth costs, or approximately $120/month across all of them).

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#232

Post by pornel »

unnouinceput wrote: post #58

Summary: - No. It's roughly the same. Mandatory Google bash comment: - It's mainly another wheel reinvention from Google, because reasons.

It's a sad story of broken promises. Back when video == Flash, Google bought and opened VP8 codec and got a bunch of companies to promise support for VP8 video.

Back then it made a lot of sense to also have an image format based on exactly VP8 (despite it being a poor fit for still image format), since everyone promised to support it, including hardware acceleration.

But Adobe never added VP8 to Flash, hardware support was too little too late. VP8 died, and WebP is burdened with compatibility with a world that never materialized.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#233

Post by flowerbeater »

jpambrun wrote: post #226

These numbers need decompression computational complexity for completeness. I am not better off if I save 1ms downloading, but it takes 5-10 more ms decoding. Bandwidths in the 100s Mbps are common now..

Not for me. I'm in the United States in an urban area and mobile data is 1 cent per megabyte (my provider is Google Fi). Decoding is nearly pretty fast for me, but the time for page elements to download is in the seconds (not even milliseconds). And if there's any low signal (wifi or mobile data), then over 10 seconds is not uncommon.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#234

Post by flowerbeater »

Jonnax wrote: post #5

So what's this AVIF format they mention that's actually better than both? WebP did not take off. But will AVIF be any better?

I think it's just about to take off. Browser support across the board is coming by the end of the year. PNG also took a while to become fully supported, so we just need some patience.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#235

Post by coopsmgoops »

arcticbull wrote: post #184
surround wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebP also supports animation, which is important because GIFs are notoriously large.

Animations should just be videos. No reason for an animated image format, an animated image is just a video with no audio track.

The only advantage I can see it where videos are not allowed to autoplay you would want a gif to play somethig small.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#236

Post by coopsmgoops »

pseudosavant wrote: post #189
leni536 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the web you can do it with SVG. https://github.com/leni536/trans_jpg

That is really cool. I had never thought about (ab)using SVG in that way. SVG is such an underappreciated technology that is in every browser. Why do icon fonts exist when you could just use SVGs just like you do PNGs and JPEGs? You can even inline them in your HTML so there isn't an additional HTTP request if you want.

Wouldn't it probably be one request per icon instead of just one request for a while font?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#237

Post by _AzMoo »

Andrex wrote: post #190
surround wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebP also supports animation, which is important because GIFs are notoriously large.

As a point of data, Animated PNG is finally (as of ~2019) supported natively among all major browsers. https://caniuse.com/#search=animated%20png Edit- I was unaware the recently-announced Safari 14 Technical Preview adds support for WebP too! Making both formats viable for all browsers, finally.

Recently we've been going through the browser stats on our websites, and while globally apparently IE is dying, it's certainly not dead yet. In the specific industry I work in (Heavy Automotive Retailing, eg Truck Sales and Servicing), we see upwards of 30% of our users on browsers <= IE11. All of our sites are getting poor lighthouse scores on performance with the main suggestion to be changing to webp, but that would exclude 30% of our customers.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#238

Post by clouddrover »

oefrha wrote: post #93
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…

> MPEG (like it or not, MPEG represents the industry)

Not so much anymore. The licensing fiasco with HEVC has reduced MPEG's relevance, particularly for web video. Here's what Leonardo Chiariglione, founder and chairman of MPEG, says about it:

https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solu...

https://blog.chiariglione.org/stop-here-if-you-to-know-about...

And they're shaping up to make VVC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Video_Coding) licensing just as bad.

Leonardo says there is no longer a united MPEG:

https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-future-without-mpeg/

Why would anyone waste their time on a format with complex and uncertain licensing when they can just implement AV1 with its simple, royalty-free licensing?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#239

Post by 72deluxe »

baxtr wrote: post #157
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.

The irony is that the Lighthouse site itself scores really badly! Can you accept its advice?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#240

Post by spartanatreyu »

coopsmgoops wrote: post #235
arcticbull wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animations should just be videos. No reason for an animated image format, an animated image is just a video with no audio track.

The only advantage I can see it where videos are not allowed to autoplay you would want a gif to play somethig small.

Videos can autoplay on browsers if they are muted
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