Could JPEG2000 Finally Take Off In 2020? It's A Possibility With High Throughput HTJ2K

While the standard is now two decades old and has yet to unseat the JPEG image standard in popularity, there is renewed interest in JPEG2000 with High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K) and finally seeing increased software support. Collabora's Aaron Boxer thinks that JPEG2000 could finally be going mainstream.

Besides there no longer being any known patent/legal risk around JPEG 2000, back in 2018 the High Throughput JPEG 2000 (HTJ2K) work was announced that has all of the JPEG 2000 features but is much faster and still more efficient than traditional JPEGs. Those wishing to learn more about High Throughput JPEG 2000 can do so via HTJ2K.com and this whitepaper.

Collabora's Aaron Boxer believes JPEG 2000 could finally be going mainstream thanks to HTJ2K being multiple times faster (up to 10x faster), royalty free, and there now being an EmScripten-based JavaScript decoder for web browsers without JPEG 2000 support.

Boxer talked about this during FOSDEM 2020 and for those curious there is this ODP slide deck covering the rise and fall (so far) of JPEG 2000. It will be interesting to see in 2020 if there will indeed be any renewed interest in this superior standard to JPEG.