FS7: Is internal RAW comng to the FS7 and fs5?

Jannard's patent on the "video camera"

man this stuff is funny looking back:

"A video camera comprising: a lens assembly supported by the housing and configured to focus light; a light sensitive device configured to convert the focused light into a raw signal of image data representing at least first, second, and third colors of the focused light; an image processing module configured to modify image data of at least one of the first and second colors based on the image data of the third color; a memory device; and a compression device configured to compress the image data of the first, second, and third colors and to store the compressed image data on the memory device at a frame rate of at least about 23 frames per second. "

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...01&s1="jannard"&p=2&OS="jannard"&RS="jannard"

still fishing for more…
 
As far as I remember that isn't the case, but rather both Cineform and Redcode made use of Jpeg2000 compression in their files and so Cineform was exempt from the patent exclusions.

It's been a while...

Could be. It's all a little foggy at this point.
 
Thx for the links, Dennis. This is hilarious.
So they basically patented common sense.

I can see how this doesn't apply to BM internal raw (BM don't separate color channels). Now I wonder if BM did that intentionally to circumvent this b.s.
 
I don't understand why you're calling it BS.

None of the proper players were even vaguely interested in doing this back then. Red were widely and roundly lambasted and laughed at.

Why on Earth wouldn't they patent it?
 
I don't understand why you're calling it BS.

None of the proper players were even vaguely interested in doing this back then. Red were widely and roundly lambasted and laughed at.

Why on Earth wouldn't they patent it?

I don't think it's true that the other players weren't interested. From what I remember the Arri D20 and D21 shot true RAW, but back then it was impossible to fit enough hard drives internally into a camera. So all the RAW recorders were external. The early CODEC recorders were the size of a small fridge. Panavision stuck their recorder on top of the camera so it could be swapped out like a film magazine.

At that time if you wanted to record internally it had to be a compressed format (Sony SR etc). If RED had gone with true RAW they could have not pulled off internal recording, so the whole argument is not quite black and white. At the time ReCOde was a very smart decision, given the storage costs and processing power of computers. But in 2015 RED should start to think about offering a true uncompressed or lossless compressed RAW mode. Neither Storage nor processing power are a problem
 
Last edited:
At the time this patent was granted there were cameras recording wavelets compressed raw video externally. Going internal is only the next obvious step and the only reason this hadn't been patented beforehand is that most likely noone thought about patenting such an obvious thing. Also, internal compressed raw recording for photo cameras has been around already at that time and a video camera is nothing more than a fancy photo camera.
 
... But in 2015 RED should start to think about offering a true uncompressed or lossless compressed RAW mode...
From what I recall, 3:1 is "mathematically" lossless while 5:1 is "visually" lossless.

Sony's current 16-bit RAW is 53 minutes for 512GB, which means 13.25 minutes on 128GB at the same compression. I figure if they go for something like 9:1 you'd be getting 40 minutes on a card, and the data rate would only be 320mbps or 40 MB/s which is quite manageable..
But at 512 GB for 16-bit, it is already compressed, right? It looks like a 3:1, the "mathematically" lossless type. (which means that 16-bit takes 50% more space than the 12-bit ... am I right?)

As to what Nirv mentioned, at some point, there is an overlap between lossy Raw and XAVC (or any compression codec). A more interesting solution for any sub-$10,000 maker is to add a high rate (let's say 300-400 Mbps) internal HEVC.
 
Last edited:
From what I recall, 3:1 is "mathematically" lossless while 5:1 is "visually" lossless..


I don't know exactly what RED is doing. But you can feel the compression even at 3:1 and it is wavelet / jpeg compression, which I'm pretty sure is mathematically not lossless. Regardless I think RedCode is a really good compressed format, but personally I just don't consider it true RAW, but more of a hybrid.
 
From what I recall, 3:1 is "mathematically" lossless while 5:1 is "visually" lossless.

But at 512 GB for 16-bit, it is already compressed, right? It looks like a 3:1, the "mathematically" lossless type. (which means that 16-bit takes 50% more space than the 12-bit ... am I right?)

All Red compression options are lossy, including 3:1.
Lossless raw would be around 2:1 for most cameras. A bit less for cameras lacking OLPFs. It is also heavily dependent on content. With lossless it is always variable bit rate though, so this is an approximate average ratio.
 
Of all the things that Red should be concentrating on, a new version of Redcode is nowhere near the top 20. It's the best thing about the cameras/ecosystem hands down.
 
... Lossless raw would be around 2:1 for most cameras. .
Would it make much/any difference if this was 10-bit vs. 12-bit vs 16-bit? In other words, are some Raw files more "squeezable" than others?
 
Would it make much/any difference if this was 10-bit vs. 12-bit vs 16-bit? In other words, are some Raw files more "squeezable" than others?

In general, log compresses better than linear for the same bitdepth. Bitdepth itself doesn't make that much of a difference, assuming the same distribution of values (i.e. comparing linear to linear).
But detail is the biggest differentiator: soft/organic images compress well; shallow dof compresses better than deep dof; clean images compress better than noisy images; OLPF cameras compress better than no-OLPF cameras because fake detail reduces local correlation.

It is also important how "dense" the uncompressed data is. For example, Sony FS cameras don't really utilize all the 12 bits fully, so FS raw compresses significantly better than anything else I've seen. It can sometimes reach 3:1.

In my experience, FS raw is at the top and BM raw is at the bottom (typical ~1.6:1) in terms of lossless compressibility. Most cameras fall somewhere around slightly better than 2:1 though. My list goes in the following order from best to worst: FS, Indiecam GS2k, Kinemini 4k, Bolex, Canon ML raw, Kinemax 6k, Ikonoskop, BMCC. Take it with a grain of salt though bearing in mind the "detail" remark above.
 
Back
Top