Loading Images Slow [Not over Internet]

Question

Hi,
I'm wondering if the way my program is behaving is normal.
I'm loading about 200 images into my program. They're about 3 kilobytes each, so in total I'm loading about 700 kb worth of data.
I use the following code:
  for(int i=0; i<images.length; i++)
    mediaTracker.addImage(img,1);
mediaTracker.waitForAll();
However, loading these images often takes up to a minute. And this is not over the internet. This is directly read from the HD. Is this loading time normal? It seems strange that it takes a min to load not even 1 meg of data.
Please offer any suggestions.

Answer 1

I tried reading in 200 images that are about 6.5K each -- takes about 5 secs total on my shitbox of a machine.
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.imageio.*;
public class Example {
    static final int UB = 200;
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        createFiles();
        long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
        System.out.println("start");
        readFiles();
        long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
        System.out.println("elapsed millis = " + (end-start));
    static void createFiles() throws IOException {
        URL url = new URL("http://today.java.net/jag/bio/JagHeadshot-small.jpg");
        BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(url);
        Iterator it = ImageIO.getImageWritersBySuffix("jpeg");
        ImageWriter w = (ImageWriter) it.next();
        for(int i=0; i<UB; ++i) {
            w.setOutput(ImageIO.createImageOutputStream(new File("images/temp" + i + ".jpeg")));
            w.write(image);
     static void readFiles() throws IOException {
         BufferedImage[] images = new BufferedImage[UB];
         Iterator it = ImageIO.getImageReadersBySuffix("jpeg");
         ImageReader r = (ImageReader) it.next();
         for(int i=0; i<UB; ++i) {
             r.setInput(ImageIO.createImageInputStream(new File("images/temp" + i + ".jpeg")));
             images[i] = r.read(0);
}