HD View v. Google Earth 4.2 Photo Viewing Compared

Here's a comparison between Gigapixel and panoramic support for Google Earth announced recently with HD View beta as posted in the HD View Blog.
You will have to install HD View plugin if it has not been installed about which I had posted here.

The author did the comparison by uploading a large 360 degree panorama of Mt. Rainier to the Gigapan site and used their tool to geocode its position. This generated a kml file which was opened with Google Earth. Then he created an HD View page for the same panorama.
Here's the table summarizing the key features:

Feature	Google Earth 4.2 Photo Viewing	HD View
Integrated in a world browsing application	YES	NO
Use it on your own web site	NO	YES
Handles arbitrarily large images	YES	YES
Supports panoramic images	YES *	YES
Uses GPU acceleration	YES	YES
Dynamically change projection depending on zoom level	NO	YES
Dynamic tone adjustment	NO	YES
Uses HD Photo (JPEG XR) for up to 50% faster download times	NO	YES
Has a blog dedicated to immersive images	:(	:)

And the author gives these links to try for yourself by exploring Mt. Rainier image.

(1) Gigapan Flash Viewer, (2) from Gigapan page select View in Google Earth 4.2, (3) HD View