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Image MIME Reference
JPEG-XR

JPEG XR (HD Photo)

image/vnd.ms-photo
VS

Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)

image/x-tga
TGA

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

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature JPEG-XR TGA
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading Yes ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
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 →
Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)
image/x-tga
Extension
.tga.icb.vda.vst
Container Truevision TGA Footer/Header
Compression Uncompressed / Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
Algorithm
NoneRLE
Color Depth 8-bit (Grayscale or Indexed), 16-bit (High Color), 24-bit (True Color), 32-bit (True Color with Alpha Channel)
Developed by Truevision Inc.
Released 1984
Magic Bytes
54 52 55 45 56 49 53 49 4F 4E 2D 58 46 49 4C 45 2E 00 (At the end of the file)
Full TGA reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser JPEG-XR TGA
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✓
 ✕
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
TGA

TGA Strengths

  • Incredibly simple byte layout allows developers to write custom loaders and exporters in a few dozen lines of code, bypassing the need for heavy external libraries
  • Native support for 8-bit alpha channels ensures flawless transparency masking for real-time 3D rendering
  • Fast, predictable RLE decoding requires almost no CPU overhead compared to DEFLATE (PNG) or DCT (JPEG)
Limitations
  • RLE compression is relatively weak by modern standards, resulting in large file sizes
  • Lacks a standard magic byte header at the beginning of the file, making file-sniffing unreliable for older v1.0 files
  • Zero support in web browsers; must be converted to PNG or WebP for web delivery

When to choose which format

JPEG-XR
Use JPEG-XR when…
  • Legacy Windows Desktop Backgrounds
  • XPS (XML Paper Specification) Documents
  • Early High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography
  • DirectX Textures
TGA
Use TGA when…
  • Video Game 3D Textures and Materials
  • 3D Rendering and Animation Sequences
  • Legacy Video Production Workflows

More comparisons

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