On 10/17/06 10:23 PM, "Chuck Patch" <chuck.patch at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/17/06, Tom A. <tarnautovic at speakeasy.net> wrote: >> Storage media (hdd) is getting cheaper and larger. I really do not >> see the need >> for a new compression algorithm these days. Especially from MS. >> > I find this argument (which I have been hearing for years now) to be > fairly specious. The fact is that while storage may be cheaper digital > images are much bigger than they used to be and there are lots more of > them. Nor has bandwidth speeded up in proportion to the bulking up of > image sizes. And as for storage getting so much cheaper: having put > down 70K dollars this year for a 3.2 TB EMC system and facing ongoing > maintenance fees in the thousands per year, plus management software > for the drives, etc., I'm not so sure that disk has gotten all that > much cheaper, at least if you're talking about secure, robust storage. I don't think this new format will have a noticeable impact on storage in professional applications, since it's designed to replace jpg and jpg2000, not TIFF and the raw camera formats (which are 80-99% of the storage problem, and closer to the high end of that for professional situations). It's more about squeezing a few more pics onto your 2GB SD card with that 10 Megapixel Prosumer-level digicam. If Vista's built-in apps like to default to the new format, it's safe to say that it will get popular on a consumer level whether it's a good idea or not. But it's not likely to penetrate the professional market for a long time.
