RED Mini-Mags Exposed, or just Business As Usual?

It seems the Jinni-Tech vs RED saga is off again... A re-upload with comments having, it appears, cleared some legal challenges fron RED when it was first posted.


There is also a comment from Jinni-Tech when asked if there will be a part 6: "Yes. That would be a look inside REDCODE"
Time to order more popcorn :)
 
And here we go with Part 6, this one goes though the maths and algorithms of RAW, Bayer etc and the RED and *Pre existing* systems doing the same

I don't have a dog in this fight but it is interesting from the technical perspective as well as the business shenanigans.
It appears to do the US Patent Office no favours either. But that is nothing new.
 
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U-S-A ... U-S-A ...say it with me? :engel017:

Bottom line is it was right to be patented because no other cameras still look as good (besides ARRI), so if they didn't do it someone else would have.

There are likely hundreds of other similar examples across other industries because business is supposed to be cutthroat.
 
NorBro said:
U-S-A ... U-S-A ...say it with me? :engel017:
Bottom line is it was right to be patented because no other cameras still look as good (besides ARRI), so if they didn't do it someone else would have.
There are likely hundreds of other similar examples across other industries because business is supposed to be cutthroat.
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Many beleive that no reputable Patent Office would have issued a patent for it. The process should have found it not to be novel and there was prior art.
You wonder why countries ignore US patents?
 
JAMedia said:
Many beleive that no reputable Patent Office would have issued a patent for it. The process should have found it not to be novel and there was prior art.
You wonder why countries ignore US patents?
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I agree. Nothing appears to have been new, novel or inventive. The wavelet compression encoding looks to have been rebranded jpeg2000 as used in FPGA from Xilinx and VLSI chips from Analog Devices; as used in the SiliconImaging SI-2K camera and video decoder cards from Atomix. The demosaic was demonstrated prior by Cineform and widely discussed in detail by David Newman on DVInfo.net. I remember those discussions. The one distiguishing feature that I recall as setting apart the Red One was the 1 chip large sensor, at a time when we were shooting split prism 3-chip CCD 2/3 inch; and the goofy things we were trying to accomplish with Brevis and Letus adapters for shallow depth of field.
 
JAMedia said:
Many beleive that no reputable Patent Office would have issued a patent for it. The process should have found it not to be novel and there was prior art.
You wonder why countries ignore US patents?
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Maybe so, truly, but you're analyzing in hindsight. And you're only looking at it one way; as an outsider who believes that the technology shouldn't have been patentable and it's unfair.

But that's your opinion, you know? The governing body for their own grounds had their own.

Morally, humans are figuring stuff out as we go along. There have been many, many mistakes in the world's history, handfuls that have led to devastating consequences. Technology laws are complicated, and at the time - several years after the millennium - brains presumably processed RED's ideas differently than they would have in 2023, especially for video regardless of what technology existed beforehand.

Yes, this definitely messed up the video camera industry, badly - but maybe that also was exactly the point.

Here's another perspective: Hollywood has made an unthinkable and maybe unquantifiable amount of money for the United States. Movie stars and larger-than-life creations on the big screen almost single-handedly made this country the most popular after boxes which transmitted moving images and sound were created.

Perhaps the USA patent office had a light-bulb moment and understood if they patented this technology (for a guy who had a lot of money, lol) it would not only affect other imported goods and business relationships but that it was an opportunity to further control something that was so very important to the country; entertainment and the future of how movies would be made.

I think the idea of the USA having its own hardware with something special inside it that could make an impact in the film industry and maybe even replace a German product probably sounded desirable to country runners.
 
Parse it any way you want Norbro but Red is just a mediocre camera company that has stopped innovation and the way they’re making money now is by licensing their I.P,, according to the patent office, and can only dream of competing with Arri who are so far ahead.
 
I don't have a dog in this fight, mico - just like JAM said he doesn't.

But saying they stopped innovation or they're mediocre is silly. They are constantly coming up with new cameras and specs. Panasonic has had two cinema cameras less than $10K in the last 15 years.

RED has been a leader in Hollywood and has image quality that speaks for itself:

https://www.red.com/shot-on-red

We don't need to like them at all, but have to be realistic about their accomplishments.

And no one is really innovating with anything right now. Improvements in AF, IBIS, DR, color and resolution are happening (where applicable) for everyone. That's it because they are just cameras and aren't going to get much better unless they start looking like real life.
 
NorBro said:
I think the idea of the USA having its own hardware with something special inside it that could make an impact in the film industry and maybe even replace a German product probably sounded desirable to country runners.
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And exactly that sort of thinking is what devalues the US Patent Office Globally (It is also why part of the reason why Hollywood is no longer the centre of film production in the world even if it feels like it to those in California). Personally, having used their cars, firearms and other kit, I would probably go for something German over something from the US. Though In cameras the Japanese seem to have a lot of the market sewn up.
 
It might devalue it, I think so, but who cares? We want to make money. We want power.

People want to sell things in the United States, it is a priority.

If the Japanese or Australians or Germans want to sell cameras that record RAW internally in the USA they have to run it by the United States first (or find a loophole and market that).

That was one of the points...not about what other people might think of the US Patent Office.

No matter if there are more productions anywhere else or a larger audience, Hollywood and its history will forever be #1.
 
NorBro said:
It might devalue it, I think so, but who cares? We want to make money. We want power.
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That is a good way to lose power. There are multiple countries that already ignore US patents.

Were will you go if all the non-US camera companies ignore the RED patent and sell to the other 191 countries other than the USA. Where does that leave the USA? short of all cameras except the US ones. Not only the camera s but the rest of the kit those companies make. The rest of the world will have better technology. the film industry will move there.

As for Hollywood forever being #1 that is a myth that is no longer true.
 
NorBro said:
It might devalue it, I think so, but who cares? We want to make money. We want power.

People want to sell things in the United States, it is a priority.
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This is where I can't agree. I have no dog in the hunt either, and I'm in favor of rightful protections for inventors and copyright holders. Patents are law. "Ours is a government of laws not of men." John Adams. And that's where the problem lies for me, that in order to be awarded the patent they had to assert there was no prior art, when it appears the technology used was created and manufactured by others. They appear to be falsely claiming as their own that which is not. It appears to me to be a deliberate falsification and if so, is illegal.
 
JAMedia said:
That is a good way to lose power. There are multiple countries that already ignore US patents.

Were will you go if all the non-US camera companies ignore the RED patent and sell to the other 191 countries other than the USA. Where does that leave the USA? short of all cameras except the US ones. Not only the camera s but the rest of the kit those companies make. The rest of the world will have better technology. the film industry will move there.

As for Hollywood forever being #1 that is a myth that is no longer true.
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That's a hypothetical situation that would never happen in this case. Maybe an excellent point to consider in a different industry, but not technology and as far as the amount of electronics USA individuals purchase and how important the USA is in this business.

And if you asked aspiring talent around the world where they would like to end up, the end-goal, I wonder how many would collectively say America. Or India? Or China? Or maybe some would like to be a star only in their home countries.
 
Tom Roper said:
This is where I can't agree. I have no dog in the hunt either, and I'm in favor of rightful protections for inventors and copyright holders. Patents are law. "Ours is a government of laws not of men." John Adams. And that's where the problem lies for me, that in order to be awarded the patent they had to assert there was no prior art, when it appears the technology used was created and manufactured by others. They appear to be falsely claiming as their own that which is not. It appears to me to be a deliberate falsification and if so, is illegal.
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Well, I'm sure you can think of other things that could end up on your same moral or legal-illegal list in the history of the world and how it was created, right?

Maybe even thinking about the other products you use in your everyday life and how they were made and where they come from? Or the food you eat? Or the land your house is on and how it was acquired?

In this situation, was the aforementioned technology created and manufactured by others ever used in a video format? If not, are you saying you don't agree that it should be protected under this case then?
 
NorBro said:
Well, I'm sure you can think of other things that could end up on your same moral or legal-illegal list in the history of the world and how it was created, right?
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I'm sure I could but that is not a defense.

In this situation, was the aforementioned technology created and manufactured by others ever used in a video format?
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Apparently, yes. Cineform Raw, SiliconImaging Si-2K camera and Atomix video display adapters. Also Jpeg, joint photographic experts group, as RedCodeRaw is alleged to be rebranded jpeg2000 wavelet compression. The chief potentially patentable effort according to Jinni Tech is the demosaic, which is being attributed to Cineform.

If not, are you saying you don't agree that it should be protected under this case then?
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It should be struck if it was illegally obtained. The patent laws are to protect "rightful" holders.
 
Then the only question that's left to ask is why this has held up and lasted for so long?

I don't know the reason, but if it's wrong then why hasn't it been invalidated?

Again, without being able to prove or disprove any of it as a highly-educated expert on the matter (not just repeating what others say), I would think other professional and legal experts would agree it's illegal?
 
I remember some of the conversations from David Newman of Cineform, and I remember Graeme Nattress posting frequently at DVInfo.net. In fact I dug up a post where he might have revealed something of prior art, but the source has been removed. That's speculation.

Could someone please explain "Colorspace"? at DVinfo.net

He sold plugins for FCP before working for Red and being named in Red's patent applications.

The discussions about chroma subsampling and wavelet compression predated Red's existence, but Red later was a customer of Xilinx FPGA and Analog Devices VLSI chips that Red used in cameras and display adapters. Red's patent applications were for cinema cameras, not chips and since they were a customer of the chip makers, there likely was seen no conflict that would cause a patent challenge from Red's claim. The promotional materials for Xilinx and Analog Devices did state their products were intended for "cinema camera" applications, therein the prior art according to Jinni Tech.
 
If Xilinx and Analog Devices (and anyone else involved) never planned on making a camera, how else did this affect them?

So far, I believe only Apple in the US challenged it as far as using it inside of a device that has a camera.

Overall, it sounds like other than aggravating a couple of American companies or inventors, it doesn't really sound like a terrible decision outside of the USA as far as other regulation that results from it/them.
 
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