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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sparky678348@lemm.ee to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

I don't know what a .webp file is but I don't like it. They're like a filthy prank version of the image/gif you're looking for. They make you jump through all these hoops to find the original versions of the files that you can actually do anything with.

Edit: honestly I assumed it had something to do with Google protecting themselves from image piracy shit

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[-] kabe@lemmy.world 232 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The format actually has a lot of benefits - it supports transparency, animation, and compresses very efficiently. So it could theoretically replace GIF, JPG, and PNG in one fell swoop.

The downsides are that many apps don't currently support it and that it's owned by Google.

Personally I use webp for images that are not intended to share (e.g. banners and images on my blog), but stick to JPG/PNG for sending to other people.

[-] Dark_Arc@lemmy.world 150 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

and that it’s owned by Google.

I mean yes, but it's ~~patent~~ irrevocably royalty free (so long as you don't sue people claiming WebM/P as your own/partially your own work), so it's effectively owned by the public.

Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer implementations of the WebM Specifications, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by implementation of the WebM Specifications. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any implementation of the WebM Specifications constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under the License for the WebM Specifications shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. "WebM Specifications" means the specifications to the WebM codecs as embodied in the source code to the WebM codecs or any written description of such specifications, in either case as distributed by Google.

Source: https://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/

(But Dark, that's WebM not WebP! -- they share the same license: https://groups.google.com/a/webmproject.org/g/webp-discuss/c/W4_j7Tlofv8)

[-] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 29 points 1 year ago

Thank you for this. I was kind of on the fence because of its ties to google but this helps a ton.

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

And here comes jpegXL claiming the same things. Fun times.

[-] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

Okay, but jpeg xl is looking pretty good. Especially the ability to losslessly convert jpg to jxl.

Recent conversation on lemmy.world and an article about it.

[-] nulldev@lemmy.vepta.org 20 points 1 year ago

JPEG XL came after WebP. It's more of a successor and less of a competitor.

That said, in the world of standards, a successor is still a competitor.

[-] mvirts@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Jpegxl will die because it has a bad name, that's it

[-] optimal@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 year ago

We usually call it JXL for short.

[-] mvirts@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I'll take it, hopefully jxl becomes the primary way it's referred to 😁

[-] Laticauda@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah I wouldn't have an issue with them if they weren't so incompatible with most of the programs and sites I like to use. It makes them super inconvenient to work with. I know some apps are catching up and supporting them, but it feels like the adaptation is slow and patchy which makes it difficult to know which programs will support webp at some point and when.

Potientially dumb question here, but how does Google own a file format? They own the patent?

[-] kabe@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I think so, but I'm no expert on the details of legal ownership.

@Dark_Arc@lemmy.world added a good comment here that explains the royalty free licensing.

[-] lapingvino@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

look up mp3 -- that didn't become public domain until pretty recently (I think 2017?)

not an uncommon thing really

[-] Beliriel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Wait LAME encoders are now obsolete? Tf? How did I miss this?

[-] curiosityLynx@kglitch.social 3 points 1 year ago

So basically what APNG tried to be?

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago
[-] curiosityLynx@kglitch.social 4 points 1 year ago

True. Why did it remain relatively unknown while webp seems to have taken off?

[-] Zeus@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

libpng refused to accept it

mozilla made it because it suited their needs; and libpng (the organisation behind png, and who make the standard png decoder[^1]) refused to add compatibility, insisting on mng instead. mng was bad, so nobody used it; and apng was great, but require mozillas version of the decoder so systems couldn't use both the official version and the apng supporting version together

[^1]: and have a fantastic website

[-] curiosityLynx@kglitch.social 11 points 1 year ago

Ah, so it was people being prideful idiots because it didn't come from their own fiefdom.

[-] Zeus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

partly, i don't think it was just that. mng did have considerable benefits over apng at the time; but it was a solution looking for a problem. i think they wanted it to succeed because they'd poured time into it, but nobody wanted to support it (mozilla, the only browser to support it to my knowledge, dropped support eventually because the mng decoder was bigger than every other image decoder in firefox put together)

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

To add to the reply you got, WebP is lossy. Meaning that WebP files are smaller. APNG only added animation and nothing else.

[-] And009@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

That's a great idea. But can't webp simply be converted into a png or mp4 file?

[-] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago

mp4 isn't generally for images.

Yes you can convert, it's just that many existing tools may not presently support webp. If you just want a quick & dirty meme you can always screen cap.

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago

The fun thing is heif is actually effectively single frame of h.265 video because the amount of work that's gone into making h.265 space efficient also happens to work really well for efficienct compression of individual frames of video aka images

this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
424 points (92.6% liked)

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