[7454] in www-talk@info.cern.ch
Re: GIF vs JPEG
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Simon Mullenger TS House)
Tue Jan 31 11:45:47 1995
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 16:54:01 +0100
Errors-To: listmaster@www0.cern.ch
Reply-To: sjm@roke.co.uk
From: sjm@roke.co.uk (Simon Mullenger TS House)
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Hi,
The bandwidth savings, when using JPEG for image transfer, are truely amazing.
Please find below the official view of the Independent JPEG group on the differences between, and the uses of, JPEG and GIF image formats.
Best Regards
Simon Mullenger
sjm@roke.co.uk
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>> If you'll so a little more research on the JPEG format, you'll find out
>> that it is just a compressed GIF.
This is a seriously wrongheaded notion -- about on a par with asserting
that a screwdriver is just an undersized hammer. JPEG and GIF are
substantially different tools, suited for substantially different jobs.
JPEG works well on truecolor photographs, not at all well on icons and line
drawings, whereas GIF is the reverse.
More complete details on JPEG and GIF can be found in the JPEG FAQ
<http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/jpeg-faq/top.html>.
GIF is terminally ill now that Unisys has decided to start demanding LZW
patent royalties from authors of GIF-using software. A group led by
Thomas Boutell is developing a replacement lossless format called PNG.
My bet is that PNG will replace GIF on the Web before the year is out.
Progressive JPEG support will probably appear in WWW browsers in the same
time frame. PNG and JPEG will both be used heavily on the future Web,
each for its own appropriate type of picture.
regards, tom lane
organizer, Independent JPEG Group
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