A Brand New Picture File Type is Coming

The header above is just a sample of a recent and instant classic photograph. The raw file size was only 45.1 KB, but what if we could make that load even faster? If you’ve never heard of Fabrice Bellard, a mistake that can be forgiven, don’t be surprised if his name pops up more frequently in the near future. The brains behind QEMU — a way to run different operating systems on non-native hardware, e.g. a “hackintosh”  — as well as other projects, Bellard’s latest feat is a new format for photos which he dubs Better Portable Graphics or .BPG.

Bellard is aiming to replace the .JPEG file type — among others — as he claims the BPG format is smaller, offers lossless compression and can be supported by most browsers with merely a JavaScript decoder. Displayed below is a photo in both its standard format as well as in BPG. The size of each is displayed along the mouse cursor line. Note the massive difference in size versus the nearly identical image quality. For more photos to compare, go here.

Obviously the biggest gains here are for mobile users. Imagine using a convertor to replace a phone or tablet’s .JPEG or .PNG files with .BPG. Rather than using massive amounts of storage in one’s device, why not shrink the raw file size down and save space? The loading time on mobile devices not connected to Wi-Fi would be drastically reduced as well. Given the demand for iconic moments in sports and in life, the way we store our precious photos could be changed for the better.

(Header via the New York Giants Facebook page)