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Image MIME Reference
BMP

Windows Bitmap (Legacy Windows MIME Alias)

image/x-windows-bmp
VS

JPEG XR (HD Photo)

image/vnd.ms-photo
JPEG-XR

A complete technical comparison of Windows Bitmap (Legacy Windows MIME Alias) and JPEG XR (HD Photo) — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

BMP wins on browser support

Feature Support

Feature BMP JPEG-XR
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No Yes
HDR Support ✕ No Yes
EXIF Metadata ✕ No Yes
ICC Color Profile Yes Yes
Windows Bitmap (Legacy Windows MIME Alias)
image/x-windows-bmp
Extension
.bmp.dib
Container DIB (Device-Independent Bitmap)
Compression Uncompressed / Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
Algorithm
NoneRLE4RLE8
Color Depth 1-bit (Monochrome), 4-bit (16 colors), 8-bit (256 colors), 16-bit (High Color), 24-bit (True Color), 32-bit (True Color with Alpha)
Developed by Microsoft Corporation
Released 1985
Magic Bytes
42 4D
Full BMP reference →
JPEG XR (HD Photo)
image/vnd.ms-photo
Extension
.jxr.wdp.hdp
Container TIFF-like Image File Directory (IFD)
Compression Lossy (Lapped Bi-orthogonal Transform) / Lossless
Algorithm
Lapped Bi-orthogonal Transform (LBT)
Color Depth 8-bit (Grayscale, RGB, CMYK), 16-bit, 32-bit Floating Point (HDR)
Developed by Microsoft Corporation (later Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Released 2006
Magic Bytes
49 49 BC 01
Full JPEG-XR reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser BMP JPEG-XR
Chrome Chrome
✓ 1
 ✕
Firefox Firefox
✓ 1
 ✕
Safari Safari
✓ 1
 ✕
Edge Edge
✓ 12
 ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✓
✓
BMP

BMP Strengths

  • Universally supported by all major operating systems and modern web browsers
  • Maintains perfect, lossless fidelity because pixel data is stored without lossy compression artifacts
Limitations
  • Massive file size overhead due to a lack of modern compression algorithms
  • Legacy MIME strings like 'image/x-windows-bmp' can trigger validation warnings in strict security or API environments if unhandled
JPEG-XR

JPEG-XR Strengths

  • Excellent support for 16-bit and 32-bit floating-point HDR images without massive file size bloat
  • Native support for alpha transparency, which standard JPEG fundamentally lacks
  • Computational complexity for decoding/encoding is relatively low, making it hardware-friendly
Limitations
  • Suffered a complete failure of adoption in the web browser market outside of Microsoft's ecosystem
  • Fully superseded by modern, open formats like WebP, AVIF, and JPEG XL which offer better compression and universal browser support
  • Multiple file extensions (.wdp, .hdp, .jxr) and MIME types cause confusion and parsing fragmentation

When to choose which format

BMP
Use BMP when…
  • Legacy Windows Desktop Registry Associations
  • Older Enterprise Intranet Applications
  • Windows Graphics Archival
JPEG-XR
Use JPEG-XR when…
  • Legacy Windows Desktop Backgrounds
  • XPS (XML Paper Specification) Documents
  • Early High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography
  • DirectX Textures

More comparisons

BMP vs ACES → JPEG-XR vs ACES → BMP vs APNG → JPEG-XR vs APNG → BMP vs AVCI → JPEG-XR vs AVCI → BMP vs AVCS → JPEG-XR vs AVCS → BMP vs AVIF → JPEG-XR vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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