The only in-depth analysis and comparison I've seen is here:
http://x264dev.multi...edia.cx/archives/541I could understand the push for “WebP” if it was better than JPEG. And sure, technically as a file format it is, and an encoder could be made for it that’s better than JPEG. But note the word “could”. Why announce it now when libvpx is still such an awful encoder?
Other stuff:
The best format now is PNG with transparency. Alpha is not optional anymore. Otherwise, it's only good for photo albums. -Renegade
They seem to have that covered. See
http://googlecode.bl...-format-for-web.html:
We plan to add support for a transparency layer, also known as alpha channel in a future update.
Nobody will use WebP if it doesn't work in IE.
Looks promising though. A 39% reduction is a LOT~!
-Renegade
I'm too lazy to look up a citation, but IE just dropped below 50% marketshare, with Chrome making a big leap. If Google can cut down file (and transmission size) for 39% of what it's serving, just on the percentage of users that have Chrome (not to mention Firefox, who will presumably add support), they can save some real money.
I do have some reservations about the digicam issue, though. And the addition of WebP support to digicams may not be trivial. One of the criteria people consider when shopping for a camera is how quickly the camera can take shots in a burst. Using a format that's much more computationally intensive will probably slow that down (although that might be balanced by decreased usage of bandwidth to the storage card), and thus make such cameras less attractive. On the other hand, the fact that this is just a specialized usage of the VP8 video codec means that the combination of still and video capture in a single device is much more elegant architecturally.