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Of all the things hate most about Microsoft's practices, it is this kind of thing.
I am a big supporter and fan of a lot of the good things Microsoft people are doing for the company. LOTS of excellent stuff coming out of the organisation. However, it is bollocks like this that makes me sad to my stomach.
WHEN WILL THEY LEARN?
Was thinking about the specifics of this situation. If the metadata format is ex-SONY or still-SONY, then perhaps Microsoft should stick it to 'em.
However, if it is truely an open format, then Microsoft is doing it again....
I also anticipate that Google will add the ability to search on IPTC/XMP metadata in its image search, so that public photos on Flickr, and in other online image libraries using IPTC/XMP, will become far more accessible and discoverable. Will MSN Search do the same?
IPTC metadata has been around for a long time (since 1991), and is heavily used by news organizations, image libraries and professional photographers. It's also well supported by their software tools. With that installed base of metadata (which is defined by an open, consortium-driven standard) being de facto in that space, it is now moving out into the general consumer space. And while general consumers do not know about IPTC/XMP (and neither should they have to), the fact that it's there, under the covers, helps to make their user experience simple and transparent.
And Sean - EXIF and IPTC are complementary to each other. Users should not manipulate EXIF data (it is meant to be reserved for camera and scanner devices). IPTC fields is where end users should store their meta data for pictures.
See my comments on Geoff's blog for more details.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/gcoupe/Blog/cns!1...
Microsoft has (had?) the opportunity here to actually surpass Apple's "Spotlight" technology by incorporating the indexing of IPTC Core (IPTC4XMP metadata schema) metadata at the OS level (Apple's "Spotlight" only reads the legacy IPTC metadata). That MS seems to not be aware of the pervasiveness of this metadata schema is quite worrying to me.
I can't in good conscience encourage people to embrace a new operating system that ignores this more "open" metadata schema (IPTC Core) in lieu of holding that same information in a proprietary way that can't easily be shared with other operating systems and file formats.
David Riecks
http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/
We absolutely aren't trying to lock anybody into proprietary metadata formats. In fact, we don't ship any proprietary metadata formats. On the contrary, we provide extensibility to make it possible for any third party to add a metadata handler for any format that doesn't ship with the platform.
In the current CTP builds, we support XMP and EXIF, but unfortunately, so far, we only support IPTC for TIFF files. There was a snag in offering IPTC support in JPEG because the IPTC block in a JPEG file has to be nested in an App13 block. We had some delays in determining how to implement the App13 metadata handler, but (many thanks to our friends at Adobe) we now have the information required to do that.
We want very much to support IPTC in JPEG in Vista and WinFX, but we're running out of time and I honestly don't know if we'll be able to get this done in time. If not, we definitely plan to ship this in the next version of the OS.
Because this is the first version of our new extensible imaging platform, there's an awful lot we're trying to do and, unfortunately, time is limited. There are many features we're passionate about that we have to put off until the next version. At this time, I don't yet know whether this will be one of them. I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to write me if you have any concerns.
Peggi Goodwin
However, I'm surprised that IPTC support didn't get a much higher priority, since it's a commonly used and necessary standard in all the formats that can use it.
Considering that the current version difference between XP and Vista is around 5 years, I hope you really meant, "Next update to the OS", not "Next version of the OS". I don't know a lot of people willing to wait until 2010/2011 for necessary IPTC support.
But I don't think I quite understand by what you mean by "In the current CTP builds, we support XMP and EXIF, but unfortunately, so far, we only support IPTC for TIFF files". My interpretation of that would be to say that if I use the Windows Explorer to examine file properties of a JPEG, then I would see XMP and EXIF metadata displayed, and if I were to examine a TIFF file, then I would see IPTC (legacy IIM?) metadata displayed.
This doesn't seem to be the case. If I look at a JPEG file with Windows Explorer - I can see EXIF metadata, but not all XMP metadata (only 'keywords', apparently). And if I search on XMP metadata (after adding an XMP iFilter to the indexing engine), I can only seem to search in the 'keywords' metadata. Similarly, tagging a TIFF file with IPTC data does not seem to be reflected back in the properties displayed in Explorer or searchable in the index.
I'm clearly missing something in what you mean by "support". I would be grateful for a pointer to a fuller explanation of what you mean, if that's possible.
Many thanks, Geoff
It's not clear that they have created a propiertary metadata format. They could be storing keyword metadata etc. in standard EXIF format.
And if Vista doesn't ship with IPTC/XMP support in the OS the platform allows any third party to write a property handler for this type of metadata. The Vista shell will then provide the UI for viewing and editing this metadata and will use the property handler for reading and persisting the metadata.
The metadata will then also be indexed so users can perform queries against the metadata.
So yes it would be useful to have the OS ship with a default IPTC/XMP handler, but you're not totally out of luck if it doesn't since they provide an extensibility framework.
http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/marcmill/archive/200...
Thats right. The standard thats been in use since 1991, thats been ignored by EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF WINDOWS, will finally be available to you all in Vista + 1, estimated ship date 2011. In the interim, please use a Mac.
-billg
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1...
and to not include it Vista. It would have pushed Vista way beyond OS X
...I suspect that the engineers at Apple will be releasing Media Browser technology in their next OS!
Since there have been a number of postings since mine, I'll try to back up and answer each question in turn.
IPTC support is a high priority for us. We do support it for Tiff files. The problem with supporting it in JPEG arose because it has to be embedded in an App13 block. We're working on an App13 metadata handler, but because feature work is already locked down, we may or may not be able to ship it in the first version of Vista. (I hope we'll be able to, but I can't guarantee it.)
Microsoft is moving to a more incremental release schedule for the OS, and the next version is expected to ship one to two years after Vista. That's the version we'll ship the App13 handler in if it doesn't make it into this year's release.
I had an email exchange with Geoff, and I now realize that he was referring specifically to the fact that IPTC and XMP metadata aren't exposed through Windows Explorer. (I work in the developer platform group, so I naturally assumed he was referring to developer platform support. Any application built on the new platform can access these types of metadata.) While it's true that Windows Explorer doesn't expose IPTC and XMP metadtata, you can access XMP and IPTC (in TIFF files) metadata from the Vista Photo Gallery. Unfortunately, the Photo Gallery isn't as discoverable as it should be, and I'm hoping we can remedy that before we ship, as well. (It's under All Programs in the Start menu, but My Pictures still defaults to Windows Explorer.)
To be very clear, we have not created a new metadata format for images. The "Open Metadata" that Marc refers to in http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/marcmill/archive/200... is simply a property handler that enables users to apply keywords and sort and search any type of file. Application developers can write their own property handlers if they have a file format with unique metadata but, for most file types, the default properties are the standard file system properties. For image files specifically, we have a property handler that understands multiple image metadata formats, and can search for and rationalize metadata across XMP, EXIF, and IPTC formats. The format used for keywords in the Vista Photo Gallery is XMP.
The custom EXIF tags used by Explorer (XP and above IIRC) and the latest versions of Microsoft Digital Image Suite, OTOH, *do* support Unicode and have essentially unrestricted length. However, they also have a downfall: the "keywords" field must be overused to store people, location, and general keywords.
The Vista Photo Gallery DOES NOT give the end-user access to XMP and IPTC (in TIFF files) metadata. I'm beginning to feel like someone listening to ancient Greek philosophers arguing about the number of teeth a horse has. Why doesn't anyone bother to go round to the stable and actually count them?
I tagged a number of test images (both TIFF and JPEG) with XMP and IPTC metadata. The Vista Photo Gallery does not show any of this metadata. All it will show is the metadata that Microsoft uses in its Digital Image Suite products - and this ain't XMP or IPTC.
Worse, just like the Digital Image Suite editor, if I use the Vista Photo Gallery to “fix” (edit) an image, it promptly strips out any XMP and IPTC data that was originally in the image. This breaks my digital workflow – metadata must be preserved.
And I am "not concerned specifically with Windows Explorer". I am interested in a consistent platform and set of tools that will give me a good user experience. Vista Photo Gallery does not give me access to EXIF metadata – whereas the Windows Explorer does. The Windows Explorer does, however, expose Microsoft’s image metadata as used in your Digital Image Suite software. So my overall impression is that the tools are neither consistent with each other, nor do they give me full access to what I consider to be the industry standards of image metadata: IPTC, XMP and EXIF.
It would be good to see a "focus on [digital photography] from Microsoft in the future", but the performance thus far has not been encouraging. But thanks, Peggi, for continuing the conversation. I appreciate that.
As Dave Albert mentioned to you in an offline email, lot of the Photo Gallery functionality wasn't enabled yet in the December CTP. The builds that go out as CTP builds have a stabilization period before they get released, so the December CTP is actually a build from early November with a number of bug fixes. The February CTP will actually be a build from December. So, the functionality in the build on my machine is very different from what's on yours. Even so, not all of the Photo Gallery features are enabled yet even in the build I have, so this is definitely a work in progress.
I personally can't tell you what user experience features will be enabled in any given CTP (since I don't work on the user experience team), but each new build will have more features enabled, and I hope you'll continue to download the CTP releases and give us feedback. We really do appreciate your feedback and the opportunity it provides for us both to improve the product and to address concerns and clarify issues.