NewsShooter : Apple challenges RED over RAW patent legitimacy

[Gary T]

See I wish I was as knowledgable about this stuff. But really, I don't care enough to learn the finer points. Makes sense what you say. But does "1/3 to 1/5" equate to 3:1 and 5:1? Once again, my terrible math skills can't translate fractions to ratios

Canon hasn't made it easy for many outsiders to know for sure what's going under the hood with CRL, but I would understand Canon touting "1/3 to 1/5" files sizes for CRL vs uncompressed Cinema RAW files to equate to 3:1 and 5:1 compression.

I think it be nice if Canon provided a chart detailing the different compression ratios for each shooting option but since the data rate is fixed rate my guess is they decided it wasn't worth sharing the numbers. Seems like they are saying the only thing you need to worry about is the 1Gbs data rate.

I hope Canon makes a move to ProRes RAW and my guess is this is what's behind this legal case. Apple wants ProRes RAW to become a standard but Red is apparently suing everyone who touches it. It reminds me what happened when SCO started suing everyone who used Linux and IBM had to step in save to day. I think Apple wants to clear the way once and for all for anyone who wants to embed ProRes RAW into their products.

For companies like Atomos and even BMD the costs of IP litigation cannot be ignored. Every motion has to be fought in every country or your products get blocked for import. Apple has the resources to fight this battle using only a fraction of their resources. I once read Apple has over 300 lawyers on their corporate counsel team so a war room with 10 IP lawyers dedicated to this case would be relatively easy for them to field. A smaller company would be paying a couple of lawyers $400 an hour with additional costs for fees. Those costs add up pretty fast so it's no wonder Atomos agreed to pay Red a fee.

 

[puredrifting]

That chart would be nice but yes, I too have noticed Canon has been pretty closed mouthed about how CRL works. As a C200 shooter, I would really like to know the nitty-gritty of it but Canon hasn't put anything about that out. After meeting with Canon for past few years now, I have doubts you'll see Prores RAW in a Canon camera, at least for the foreseeable future. They only camera they've even put Prores into is the C700/FF and nobody is buying that camera. It's a shame, I've shot with it, its a very solid camera that I feel should have had a much more aggressive price and should have been marketed as a documentary/episodic camera more than a feature camera. I agree with others, I havent seen any footage from it that couldn't have been shot on the C300 MKII really. Not saying it couldn't be done but I shot skin tone and grading tests with the Codex back and it looked great but not like an Arri

 

[Razz16mm]

Red has been quite successful protecting Redcode IP so far. What is unique is the ability to read out and separately compress RGB pixel patterns but still store the result as a Bayer raw file.