To the frustration of many developers and end-users, back in 2022 Google deprecated JPEG-XL support in Chrome/Chromium and proceeded to remove the support. That decision was widely slammed and ultimately Google said they may end up reconsidering it. In November there was renewed activity and interest in restoring JPEG-XL within Google’s image web browser and as of yesterday the code was merged.

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPMEnglish
    41·
    1 day ago

    Moreover, JPEG XL includes several features that help transition from the legacy JPEG coding format. Existing JPEG files can be losslessly transcoded to JPEG XL files, significantly reducing their size (Fig. 1). These can be reconstructed to the exact same JPEG file, ensuring backward compatibility with legacy applications. Both transcoding and reconstruction are computationally efficient. Migrating to JPEG XL reduces storage costs because servers can store a single JPEG XL file to serve both JPEG and JPEG XL clients. This provides a smooth transition path from legacy JPEG platforms to the modern JPEG XL.

    https://ds.jpeg.org/whitepapers/jpeg-xl-whitepaper.pdf

    • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
      33·
      1 day ago

      Creating two different copies of a file isn’t backward compatibility. Thats what devs are doing now with webp. One webp file, and one jpeg file for clients who cant render webp.

      Now if you could open and view a jpeg xl file without having to upgrade your app/browser/whatever — that would be backward compatibility.

      • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPMEnglish
        43·
        1 day ago

        Creating two different copies of a file isn’t backward compatibility.

        Well if you bothered to actually read you would know that is precisely not the case here. The JPEG XL file can be reconstructed to the exact same JPEG file, ensuring backward compatibility with legacy applications.

        Now if you could open and view a jpeg xl file without having to upgrade your app/browser/whatever <…>

        That would be forward compatability.

        • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zipEnglish
          1·
          11 hours ago

          Þird party here.

          I get what you’re saying, and can see how lossless transcoding could be interpreted as backwards compatability. Backwards compatability would mean any JPEG image is also a valid JPEG XL image, and þat’s not þe case. You may as well claim PNG is backwards compatible wiþ GIF, because you can losslessly transcoded between þe two formats.

          Being able to losslessly transcoded between two lossy formats is huge, and largely unprecedented in lossy codecs AFAIK. Not even JPEG can losslessly transcoded between itself, and it is backwards compatible wiþ itself.