Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

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patrickjdempsey
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by patrickjdempsey »

In the original and in the JPG you can tell the direction of the horses' hair. In the WebP version, it just looks texture-less.
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Omega X
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Omega X »

It seems that Mozilla is combing this format since it ties directly into libvpx. Bulk of the work is already there and an experimental patch is available.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=600919

IT has a snowball's chance in hell of making it into Firefox 4 though.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by patrickjdempsey »

:beltzner wrote:I heard 75%. If Firefox doesn't implement this immediately I will start using
Opera.


Now the devs are trolling bugzilla. ;)

From that bug, an interesting analysis:
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/541
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by maxst »

Nice to see that Mozilla devs have a sense of humor... :)
I don't really "direction of the horses' hair" stuff you are talking about, for me jpeg looks worse in that area.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by maxst »

Gusar wrote:I suspect the picture looks transparent to the original.


1:40 jpeg compression (I used quality 73) is not something I would call transparent...
In practice, people rarely go below 75% jpeg quality, because artefacts become very visible.

Gusar wrote:In which case, of course there's no blur.


But for a heavy 1:40 compression there must be some blur? Is that you're implying?
Because for my second cutout I choose the sharpest part of the original, and I still can't see any webp blur.

Gusar wrote:Have you looked at the test I posted? I went quite low with the settings


Too low, I think. Not very practical. How jpeg behaves at 30% is not very insteresting, because no one would go that low anyway.

You asked for original, here's everything in one archive: Canon.png is the original, webp.exe is windows version of the convertar I'm using, and test.bat shows how I used it:
http://rapidshare.com/files/423371717/Canon.zip
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Frenzie »

maxst wrote:Too low, I think. Not very practical. How jpeg behaves at 30% is not very insteresting, because no one would go that low anyway.

True; I usually use between 50-80% compression.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Gusar »

Thanks for providing the whole pics. It's as I suspected, both encodes are transparent. Flicking between the original and an encode, I can only see the difference if I go very close to the monitor, at a normal viewing distance I can't. However, let me highlight a part of the pic:

left jpeg, right webp.
Image Image
I don't know about you, but webp definitely looks blurrier to me.

maxst wrote:
Gusar wrote:Have you looked at the test I posted? I went quite low with the settings
Too low, I think. Not very practical. How jpeg behaves at 30% is not very insteresting, because no one would go that low anyway.

I know that. It's an exaggerated test. But it shows much better how the encoders behave than your test does. Though even in your test, I noticed that a part of the image looks better with jpeg.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Gingerbread Man »

Aaron Kaluszka wrote:I have a basic patch ready and will post later today after I have some time to test (there isn't even a Windows encoder yet, and not even Google has published any webp files (just webp converted to png).

Bug 600919 wrote:Importance: -- enhancement with 31 votes

I think that bug report caused a general protection fault in my brain. There aren't any WebP files in the wild, there's no software for making them, yet 31 people are clamoring for it.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Yup, we'll have support for a format that doesn't even exist before we get a simple Options panel pref for what order tabs open. ;)
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by maxst »

Gusar wrote:Thanks for providing the whole pics. It's as I suspected, both encodes are transparent.


Not if you magnify them. In 300% magnification I cleary see jpeg artifacts around "3" in the second crop I posted, and red pixelization of webp in the first crop.

Gusar wrote:I don't know about you, but webp definitely looks blurrier to me.


But that effect seems to be very selective, even in your test cat whiskers are sharp. Everything around them is blurred, but whiskers itself are sharp. That's not exactly a worst looking artifact ever.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by maxst »

Gingerbread Man wrote:I think that bug report caused a general protection fault in my brain. There aren't any WebP files in the wild, there's no software for making them, yet 31 people are clamoring for it.


Well, anyone with Linux 64bit could use an official converter, that's a lot of people already.

And some people like me even have a windows converter. :)
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Gusar »

maxst wrote:
Gusar wrote:Thanks for providing the whole pics. It's as I suspected, both encodes are transparent.
Not if you magnify them. In 300% magnification I cleary see jpeg artifacts around "3" in the second crop I posted, and red pixelization of webp in the first crop.

There's artifacts, yes. But they're extremely minor, and only visible at magnification. You won't be looking at the pic at 300%, you'll actually be looking at it with under 100%, unless you have a really big monitor. That you need an "if blabla" is not a good argument IMO.

maxst wrote:
Gusar wrote:I don't know about you, but webp definitely looks blurrier to me.
But that effect seems to be very selective, even in your test cat whiskers are sharp. Everything around them is blurred, but whiskers itself are sharp. That's not exactly a worst looking artifact ever.

Blurriness and inability to retain detail, to me that is a very big deal. Especially when with jpeg, not only are the whiskers sharp, the rest of the cat is too. Jpeg screwes up the background, but I doubt that would be the case if I used a more common quality setting than 30. In fact, I'll encode the pic again, use let's say quality 70 for the jpeg.

Edit: Here we go. Jpeg is quality 70, filesize 93148 bytes; webp is quality 83, filesize 93014 bytes.
jpeg: http://www.imagebam.com/image/59a9f6100890568
webp: http://www.imagebam.com/image/b164c2100890573

The background looks better to me in jpeg. The cat looks quite similar. It's blurry at all the edges in webp, jpeg doesn't have that, but it has artifacts in the eyes noticeable if you go very close to the monitor.

My verdict: Right now, I don't see a reason to use webp. However, I would really, really like to see a better encoder than libvpx. Maybe it'd be different then.
Last edited by Gusar on October 6th, 2010, 5:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Frenzie »

Gingerbread Man wrote:
Bug 600919 wrote:Importance: -- enhancement with 31 votes

I think that bug report caused a general protection fault in my brain. There aren't any WebP files in the wild, there's no software for making them, yet 31 people are clamoring for it.

Vote for JPEG2000 instead! ;D
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by maxst »

Gusar wrote:There's artifacts, yes. But they're extremely minor, and only visible at magnification.


People wouldn't be looking for JPEG alternatives then. Seriously, JPEG is not that good.

Gusar wrote:My verdict: Right now, I don't see a reason to use webp. However, I would really, really like to see a better encoder than libvpx. Maybe it'd be different then.


My verdict: optimal image compression is very complex stuff, people worked on this subject for many years (certainly longer than Google exists). Google should assign a team that would work on the new format for 2-3 years, and only then announce it. By that time a fully functional converter/viewer should be available for all platforms, and browser support too.

JPEG is way too old, it's like DivX 3 of image compression, except much much older. Lots of people would like to see something new to replace it, but such half-assed experimental stuff as WebP is not it. Serious extensive research is required here.
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Re: Yet Another Image Format: Google's "WebP"

Post by Gingerbread Man »

Frenzie wrote:Vote for JPEG2000 instead! ;D

You were probably kidding, but I'll answer your question seriously anyway. It looks to me like the Wikipedia comparison image is actually blurrier in JPEG2000. Besides, no browsers seem to support it. Wikipedia lists Safari, but the latest version can't open JPEG2000 files created by Photoshop.

JPEG XR is more attractive based on the fact it's supported by Internet Explorer 9 and the image viewer included with Windows Vista and Windows 7. The sample image looks to me like an improvement over the JPEG full of artefacts. Bug 500500.
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