"What we have released is an archive of the HiRISE Experiment Data Records (EDRs) and Reduced Data Records (RDRs). EDRs are in the *.IMG file format and represent individual CCD channels (remember, there are 14 CCDs in the HiRISE camera and two channels per CCD, for a total of 28 channels). These EDRs are cleaned up, calibrated, stitched together, and mapped to Mars’ geometry, resulting in the RDR products. RDRs are in the *.JP2 and *.LBL formats. JPEG2000 is the technology that enables us to offer our gigantic images to the scientific community and the public in a timely and efficient manner. An observation’s image data are in the *.JP2 file and its meta data are in the detached *.LBL files. To view these products, JPEG2000 compatible software is required (see our site for a list of offerings)."

j2k is a free Photoshop and After Effects plug-in set for reading and writing the JPEG 2000 file format, the successor to JPEG.

Also known as JP2, JPEG 2000 uses wavelet compression as opposed to the DCT compression used in standard JPEG. The end result is better image quality in a smaller file. JP2 also includes mandatory metadata such as information about an image's color space.

The After Effects version has the ability to Auto Proxy, meaning that when working at half or quarter resolution, j2k will only need to read in a fraction of the file, resulting in dramatic speedups.

From the website:

"What is it?
J2K-Codec is a software component, developed to facilitate JPEG2000 usage.
It can save you 8,000 lines of code, replacing them with a single line.

"Who should be interested?
J2K-Codec should interest virtually any person involved in the development of a program that works with graphics one way or another."

"If you are involved in the development of games or any other program that displays images, the newest version of J2K-Codec will be a valuable addition to your software development kit. J2K-Codec is a software component that offers you the easiest way to add JPEG2000 support to application. ..."

"GeoJasper is the FREE Geo supporting command line transcoder between JPEG2000 and other formats. i.e. Converts image data from one format to another correctly transferring Geo information between GeoTiff and GeoJp2™ (GeoJpeg2000). It supports striped as well as tiled TIFF images and TIFF images geo-referenced through World Files (TFW). Moreover it may combine three 1 band TIFFs into one RGB image. There are batch files supplied within the distribution to simplify command line execution.

"This software is FREE and Open Source... It's based on JasPer library and follows it's respective licence, which is totally free now! GeoJP2™ is a trademark of Mapping Science, Inc. The GeoJP2™ format is the intellectual property of Mapping Science, Inc."

There is also more information on GeoJP2 on the website.