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Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

dpreview.com

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Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#11

Post by tim-- »

dagmx wrote: post #10
Wistar wrote: post #7

In the past 15 years, I have purchased five Lumix cameras including the new L10 (which I have yet to receive). I like their cameras a lot. The dedication to pursue this battle is another reason I am certain to buy more.

Unless I’ve missed it; Lumix has nothing to do with this long standing patent battle. Could you elaborate on the supposed relationship?

Lumix is a brand of cameras owned by Panasonic, the people who fought this battle in court.

Don't the Lumix cameras support 4k recording with the Apple ProRES codec? https://www.dpreview.com/news/3429948804/apple-loses-patent-...

Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#12

Post by dboreham »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #9
Wistar wrote: post #7

In the past 15 years, I have purchased five Lumix cameras including the new L10 (which I have yet to receive). I like their cameras a lot. The dedication to pursue this battle is another reason I am certain to buy more.

....what? Lumix and Red cameras have almost no market overlap. Only one model series even comes close to Red's cheapest camera.

I think you have your answer right there.

Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#13

Post by decimalenough »

Can somebody give a ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is? I was always under the impression that it's just a dump of the "raw" uncompressed and uncorrected data coming from the sensors, meaning it's hardware dependent and unstandardized, and Wikipedia seems to agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

So what exactly is patentable here? Or is this the bone of contention here?

Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#14

Post by picture »

decimalenough wrote: post #13

Can somebody give a ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is? I was always under the impression that it's just a dump of the "raw" uncompressed and uncorrected data coming from the sensors, meaning it's hardware dependent and unstandardized, and Wikipedia seems to agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format So what exactly is patentable here? Or is this the bone of contention here?

It's not the idea of RAW that's being patented, but rather components of "Red RAW" that includes things like compressing before debayering, as the other comment points out. I also remember hearing something about Red having a patent on directly recording to swappable SSDs or something ridiculous like that as well..

Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#15

Post by anon48293 »

decimalenough wrote: post #13

Can somebody give a ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is? I was always under the impression that it's just a dump of the "raw" uncompressed and uncorrected data coming from the sensors, meaning it's hardware dependent and unstandardized, and Wikipedia seems to agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format So what exactly is patentable here? Or is this the bone of contention here?

It is. What was patented was the compression:

“ The camera can be configured to transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data. The data can then be compressed and stored in this form. This allows a user to reconstruct the red and blue data to obtain the original raw data for a modified version of the original raw data that is visually lossless when demosaiced. Additionally, the data can be processed in a manner in which the green image elements are demosaiced first and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements.”

Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#17

Post by Lammy »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #9
Wistar wrote: post #7

In the past 15 years, I have purchased five Lumix cameras including the new L10 (which I have yet to receive). I like their cameras a lot. The dedication to pursue this battle is another reason I am certain to buy more.

....what? Lumix and Red cameras have almost no market overlap. Only one model series even comes close to Red's cheapest camera.

> Lumix and Red cameras have almost no market overlap.

Wrong, in the sense that market overlap doesn't matter. Here's an example of a Micro Four Thirds camera (system stewarded by Panasonic) that had to nerf its RAW output in a firmware update due to this patent:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220828070504/http://www.person...

> Z-CAM […] violated the famous RED patent and will pay for it soon

> The ZRAW actually stores RAW directly from Bayer sensor and not YUV as claimed (conversion happens in computer software, camera stores real linear raw). It means that they actually store real RAW on Z-CAM E2!

https://web.archive.org/web/20250906030132/http://www.person...

> ZRAW is not RAW anymore.

> After firmware v0.94.1 it's an AES-encrypted MOV-container-corrupted overXORred shit, that contains only HEVC bitstream.

Re: Japanese court overturns Red RAW video patent

#20

Post by dagmx »

tim-- wrote: post #11
dagmx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I’ve missed it; Lumix has nothing to do with this long standing patent battle. Could you elaborate on the supposed relationship?

Lumix is a brand of cameras owned by Panasonic, the people who fought this battle in court. Don't the Lumix cameras support 4k recording with the Apple ProRES codec? https://www.dpreview.com/news/3429948804/apple-loses-patent-...

Ah fair, I forgot Panasonic owned Lumix.

Though the lawsuits are more complex with multiple parties suing RED, of which Nikon also fought RED and ended up buying them out to win that side of the battle. On the panasonic side it was more of their cinema line of cameras rather than Lumix that was the driver (though they have trickle down)

And prores isn’t necessarily RAW, it’s just one of the variants.

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