JPEG Standardized

SEP 15 1992 · 12:00

JPEG quality sweep from Q90 to Q100 looped as a GIF, demonstrating the lossy tradeoff JPEG made standard in 1992. Place: ISO/IEC, Geneva (JTC 1/SC 29/WG 1) Figures: Joint Photographic Experts Group, chaired by Gregory K. Wallace · the ISO/IEC working group on still-image compression JPEG is approved as ITU-T Recommendation T.81 in September 1992 (published as ISO/IEC 10918-1 in 1994), five years after the GIF (see [[compuserve-ships-gif87a-1987]]) and four years before PNG (see [[png-released-1996]]). The technical premise is the opposite of GIF's: lossy compression optimized for photographs, using the discrete cosine transform to discard frequency information the human eye cannot easily perceive. Compression ratios of 10:1 to 50:1 are achievable with minimal perceptible loss on photographic content. On 256-color iconographic images, JPEG performs worse than GIF and introduces visible artifacts. On 16-million-color photographs, JPEG performs better than any lossless format by an order of magnitude. The two formats are designed for different content. The web of 1995 onward will use both, side by side, on the same pages. Video: Mike Pound opens Computerphile's JPEG series by explaining what the 1992 ISO standard actually specifies.