Google's new WebP software brings animated graphics and 25% faster display times

[Justin Kahn]

Google has been developing WebP software for some time and has now introduced a new version into the latest Chrome beta. The company has been trying to speed the internet up with its yet to be fully supported web image format. Google said the updated version can allow browsers to display images up to 25% faster than traditional formats.

Not only is it designed to speed things up, but it also appears that Google is attempting to simplify things and aims to replace existing formats with its supposed superior one. While Google is sure WebP both can and should replace all of the major formats, it is yet to convince browser company's like Mozillla to move away from the long used JPEG format, even with support from Facebook and Netflix. While Mozilla is hesitant to jump on board to say the least, many outside developers tend to agree with Google in terms of WebP being a superior format to what is currently out there.

Generally speaking, most images on the web are either in the lossy JPEG, transparency supporting PNG or classic animated GIF formats. However, Google says that WebP will reduce file sizes greatly compared to JPEG and will also combine many of the benefits of JPEG and PNG into a single unified format. WebP can take advantage of small compressed file sizes like JPEGs, the transparency currently available with PNGs, animated graphics like GIFs and higher quality lossless options.

Google has already been replacing images with WebP throughout its services online, including thumbnails on YouTube and logos on Google Play. In a recent blog post, Husain Bengali, a WebP optimizer at Google, said "the rollouts within Google combined have raised our aggregate data transfer savings tally to tens of terabytes every day." Bengali went on to say that not only does this mean faster page load times for users, but its also means "fewer bytes counted against metered data plans."

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/56109-googles-new-webp-software-brings-animated-graphics-and-25-faster-display-times.html

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Wouldn't smaller sizes only be half the benefit? If you can make the picture smaller, without losing quality, then couldn't you also increase quality without increasing size? When you upload to facebook, doesn't it compress the picture (or video) so that it can be easily viewed? It could now make those pictures higher quality without making them any bigger. That sounds like a better benefit to me.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Wouldn't smaller sizes only be half the benefit? If you can make the picture smaller, without losing quality, then couldn't you also increase quality without increasing size? When you upload to facebook, doesn't it compress the picture (or video) so that it can be easily viewed? It could now make those pictures higher quality without making them any bigger. That sounds like a better benefit to me.

Yeah I agree.

 

[Guest]

No matter how hard they push WebP, it won't get an actual foothold until desktop applications and/or OS-es also start to support it natively, without plugins or codecs.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

The author has posted a single .PNG image showing comparisons of the 3 different image formats. Is that a valid way to make a comparison? Just curious. I can't see the difference in quality in any of the 3 virtual images that are part of the single .PNG image.

 

[Railman]

The author has posted a single .PNG image showing comparisons of the 3 different image formats. Is that a valid way to make a comparison? Just curious. I can't see the difference in quality in any of the 3 virtual images that are part of the single .PNG image.

I think the aim was to illustrate the difference in file sizes not quality. As a matter of interest how many browsers can display the WebP format?

 

[TheBigFatClown]

I think the aim was to illustrate the difference in file sizes not quality. As a matter of interest how many browsers can display the WebP format?

But showing the difference in file sizes without a comparison in picture quality is meaningless, is it not? I can create my own image format that has a file size of 16 bytes. It probably won't look anything like the original image but the file size will definitely be smaller. If the author wanted to show the difference in file sizes without bringing image quality into the discussion he probably shouldn't have done it the way he did. Its confusing. A bar graph of percentages? A pie chart? A line graph. Why show a penguin 3x that looks exactly the same. My conclusion would be that the whole world should abandon .JPG immediately because there is no discernible differences in the image quality per the included image in the article.

I am taking a wild guess here and assuming that at the very least the Google Chrome browser can display WebP images. That is my default browser on Windows 7 at the moment and has been for the past couple of years.

 

[kuroiei]

As a CGI person I imagine lots of trouble downloading pictures from web (like textures, reference images etc.) and feeding them into various applications not necessarily compatible with the format. Adding more steps (image conversion in this case) in sometimes already convoluted process of creating 3D art or something similar sounds like a pain. Saying that, I think it would take a huge effort of the whole industry and software providers to introduce something like that.

 

[havok585]

I think the aim was to illustrate the difference in file sizes not quality. As a matter of interest how many browsers can display the WebP format?

But showing the difference in file sizes without a comparison in picture quality is meaningless, is it not? I can create my own image format that has a file size of 16 bytes. It probably won't look anything like the original image but the file size will definitely be smaller. If the author wanted to show the difference in file sizes without bringing image quality into the discussion he probably shouldn't have done it the way he did. Its confusing. A bar graph of percentages? A pie chart? A line graph. Why show a penguin 3x that looks exactly the same. My conclusion would be that the whole world should abandon .JPG immediately because there is no discernible differences in the image quality per the included image in the article.

I am taking a wild guess here and assuming that at the very least the Google Chrome browser can display WebP images. That is my default browser on Windows 7 at the moment and has been for the past couple of years.

Long live Mozilla !!

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

The author has posted a single .PNG image showing comparisons of the 3 different image formats. Is that a valid way to make a comparison? Just curious. I can't see the difference in quality in any of the 3 virtual images that are part of the single .PNG image.

I think the aim was to illustrate the difference in file sizes not quality. As a matter of interest how many browsers can display the WebP format?

It's a Google initiative so I'm sure Chrome can.

 

[MikeAcker]

As long as it goes open source I'm for it -- as an option.

 

[jsonUK]

Google is normally generous when it comes to making new standards. They often offer it as open source software.
WebP is open source software but it's going to take many years until there is wide spread adoption for it on major platforms and software.

PNG and JPG have been aging formats for a very long time and have been yearning to be replaced.

ie. PNG was approved as a new image format in 1996 to replace GIF. Web support for PNG was very weak until around 2005. Since then, it gained enough popularity to eventually replace the use of GIF's for daily use.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

PNG and JPG have been aging formats for a very long time and have been yearning to be replaced.

Please go on. I am fascinated by your post. Why are these formats 'yearning' for replacement? Because people have ADD? I never realized these formats were so terrible.

 

[jsonUK]

Please go on. I am fascinated by your post. Why are these formats 'yearning' for replacement? Because people have ADD? I never realized these formats were so terrible.

Compression wise they are better solutions.

For instance, there are commercial benefits, companies that store photos (for instance Flickr and Facebook) can save on storage space by using the new formats - and even better, since they are a smaller file size, they can be served a lot quicker. By saving bandwidth, the server can cope with more page requests, and hence perform its tasks faster.

So in fact it's not just a small benefit using an improved format, but the overall benefit.

The same will be the case for video format h265 replacing h264 which brings improved compression and support for 4K.

Edit: To be honest, these formats will never be 'replaced' but 'added to'. JPG, GIF and PNG will be around until the end of time. It's just an evolution. The only thing it will be replaced, is the preferred format for web usage. Regardless, if WebP does not fill this role, another format will at some point in the future.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Compression wise they are better solutions.

For instance, there are commercial benefits, companies that store photos (for instance Flickr and Facebook) can save on storage space by using the new formats - and even better, since they are a smaller file size, they can be served a lot quicker. By saving bandwidth, the server can cope with more page requests, and hence perform its tasks faster.

So in fact it's not just a small benefit using an improved format, but the overall benefit.

The same will be the case for video format h265 replacing h264 which brings improved compression and support for 4K.

Edit: To be honest, these formats will never be 'replaced' but 'added to'. JPG, GIF and PNG will be around until the end of time. It's just an evolution. The only thing it will be replaced, is the preferred format for web usage. Regardless, if WebP does not fill this role, another format will at some point in the future.

Phhhfffttttt!!!! I think you are exaggerating the bandwidth issue a bit. In the world of technology it seems that people are on a never-ending quest to make technologies better than they currently are. That's awesome. I love that. But sometimes I think the never-ending desire to improve things only makes things worse. Even though a technology might be superior doesn't mean it should cancel out everything else before it. The only people who care about image file sizes right now are people who don't have broadband connections, I.e., rural folks living out in the sticks. I could care less about file sizes. I care more about advancments in storage technology and increasing storage capacities than I do about reducing, and possibly compromising, what data we have now. Compression technologies are a good thing but only if the original data isn't compromised to a point in which the quality of the data becomes much less desirable. That's why I stated in my earlier post that telling us that WebP images can be reduced by a certain percentage(whatever it is, 40%, 45, 50%) is meaningless unless we can verify that the compression is an acceptable alternative to the larger image file sizes.