[X Newbies] jpegs, etc.

[Jon Warms]

The standards body states that jpeg refers to a family of algorithms 
with a variety of formats. That's fine. But - in my experience - this 
is a distinction without a difference. The standards group goes on to 
say in their faqs (quoted below), that a de-facto jpeg standard _has_ 
emerged_ for internet use, and that, Florin, is good enough for me and 
probably for most newbies as well.

Though I have to again qualify my remarks with "in my experience", all 
files I have encountered that claimed to be in jpeg formats were 
readable by apps that claimed to read jpeg files. Specifically, all 
browsers read jpegs, and all the image viewers I have used can handle 
jpegs with ease and flexibility. Office-type apps can also handle jpeg 
images.

My "arsenal" of PictureViewer, Graphics Converters, Safari, IE, and 
Navigator stands ready to handle any jpeg file hurled at it!

Jon

(Thanks for the link.)

 From <http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/section-14.html>:
> The closest thing we have to a standard JPEG format is some work 
> that's been
> coordinated by people at C-Cube Microsystems.  They have defined two
> JPEG-based file formats:
>   * JFIF (JPEG File Interchange Format), a "low-end" format that 
> transports
>     pixels and not much else.
>   * TIFF/JPEG, aka TIFF 6.0, an extension of the Aldus TIFF format.  
> TIFF is
>     a "high-end" format that will let you record just about everything 
> you
>     ever wanted to know about an image, and a lot more besides :-).
>
> JFIF has emerged as the de-facto standard on Internet, and is what is 
> most
> commonly meant by "a JPEG file".  Most JFIF readers are also capable of
> handling some not-quite-JFIF-legal variant formats.


On Tue, 13 May 2003 15:24:13 -0400 Florin Alexander Neumann wrote:

> "Strictly speaking, JPEG refers only to a family of compression
> algorithms;
> it does *not* refer to a specific image file format.  The JPEG
> committee was
> prevented from defining a file format by turf wars within the
> international
> standards organizations"