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

What I find annoying is that many of the points in JinniMag’s videos have nothing to do with his product or his disagreement with RED. They also have nothing to do with Apple’s disagreement with RED. They appear to mostly be about making RED look bad and perhaps to illustrate a history of behavior for RED. Little of it has legal significance and some of it is rather misleading. In the end I find that weakens JinniMag’s position, not strengthens it.
 
cyvideo said:
True Eric it's not like the OJ trial but more than just a few people in the industry are interested.

Just total up the views on all YouTube videos related to Red, Jinni Tech and for that matter anything related to Red and Red's pricing policies vis -a vis other tech products using similar technology and it becomes apparent there are quite a few people watching this whole Red business epic, no pun intended. One YouTube video alone on the tear down and cost of the Red 8K Weapon has accrued in excess of 3.2 million views and over 20,000 comments. This doesn't even take into consideration the discussions surrounding Red and the ensuing imbroglio that is being disseminated across various forums, such as this, and many other blogs, legal case study sites, news aggregator websites and associated industry related web sites. A quick Google search on Apple, Red, Jinni Tech instantly returns in excess of 1,200,000 results. I.2 million hits! Interests outside of our industry? Many who will have no interest in cameras or technology per se but will be more interested in the scholarly, legal and social judgements to be made on the the sort of business ethics being displayed by Red will be watching. Especially if Red becomes the recipient of an adverse finding. To put those 1.2 million hits in perspective try the same with a Google search on "iPhone 10," this returns about 7,320,000,000 hits. Based on this ratio of about 6:1 I think this shows there are quite a few people outside of our industry are reading, watching and listening to see where this is all going to end up. There is old Hollywood saying of "Everyone Loves a scandal." The more this sniffs of a scandal the more widespread the interest will be for a variety of reasons. The thing about scandals is that no action is de facto scandalous. It only becomes scandalous when it trespasses or transgresses the lines of the status quo. For many the accepted lines and status quo of acceptable business behavior, not necessarily just within our industry, have been, allegedly I point out, trampled on so will attract interest outside of our world of interest and involvement.

Chris Young
Click to expand...
To put say 3.2 million views in perspective, there are 7.5 billion people in the world. So, even if each view counted as one person, which it doesn't as refreshes and such count as more views, that would mean one in about 2350 people have seen the video. If I'm then doing my math correctly, the chances of the judge having seen that video is then 1 in 2350, and the chances of any one of 12 jury members having seen that video is 1 in 195. I'm pretty sure if I asked most of my friends outside of the camera industry if they'd heard of the recent Red scandal that the answer would be no.
 
To give some perspective, my 13 year old is into computers and he & his friends regularly watch Linus Tech Tips. At a recent dinner they grilled me for additional info about Red Mags. For about 5 minutes I was the Cool Dad. Not exactly tipping the scales at a patent trial, but it is slightly cracking into mass culture.

Still has nothing to do with where RED gets sensor or the history of Redcode.
 
Mitch Gross said:
To give some perspective, my 13 year old is into computers and he & his friends regularly watch Linus Tech Tips. At a recent dinner they grilled me for additional info about Red Mags. For about 5 minutes I was the Cool Dad.
Click to expand...

I think cool means something different my side of the pond.

:grin:
 
Mitch Gross said:
What I find annoying is that many of the points in JinniMag’s videos have nothing to do with his product or his disagreement with RED. They also have nothing to do with Apple’s disagreement with RED. They appear to mostly be about making RED look bad and perhaps to illustrate a history of behavior for RED ...
Click to expand...
That may be true but, presuming that JinniTech has an iota of an argument in this scenario, Red's response hasn't been courteous either. Aside of legal battles, it's also been waging a PR war. Which plays well to the home crowd on RedUser but tends to evoke a desperate response from the aggrieved party. And, lo and behold and quite contrary to Red's management expectations, the aggrieved party managed to create quite a sh!tstorm across the webs. So, maybe Red should have refrained from a heavy handed enforcer approach and been playing nicer all along.

Of course, then they'd suffer a loss of revenues also and, Red ecosystem is one profitable cash cow.

Tamerlin said:
In other words, if you don't have a strong enough case to win in court, you try to get the public opinion on your side...
Click to expand...
Of course, as I had mentioned above, Red willingly entered the PR battle, which it thought it would easily win.
 
I guess all this discussion is getting miles off the core interests of this forum but as the RED vs Jinni Tech case does and will have some impact on our industry I find it interesting none the less.

Re comments about the court of public opinion. In the past I worked for attorneys supplying evidentiary video for court cases and have worked closely enough with some of them to know that they frequently refer in many instances to legal case studies for research on opinion, points of law, rulings, legal outcomes, penalties etc. Many of these courts of public opinion in the legal sphere are often looked at by judges I have been informed because they tend to reflect the current state of thinking and interpretation of points of law amongst the legal and judicial community. In more recent years the quoting of precedent from many of these legal studies from court rulings, universisity law faculty interpretations etc give the legal community the latest thinking and interpretation of the law by the legal community at large. As one attorney said to me the constant changing of legal precedent is easiest to keep up with via online legal resources because often precedents in law books can be outdated very quickly due to rapid evolution in law thinking and argument. The web is very much becoming a court of public opinion for the legal community as it is to as someone said "the great unwashed" amonst us. Many of these legal resources are looking at this RED vs Jinni Tech case. They aren't in the slightest interested in the fact that this case revolves around cameras and codec technology. It could all be about refrigerators or or some other industry equipment. What is interesting to those involved in legal matters is how this plays out in terms of final judgement as the ruling in the RED vs Jinni Tech can and will influence argument in other contested patent trials. I'm no betting man but I would imagine Apple's attorneys are sitting there scrutinizing every judgment made throughout this case in Washington, which RED is trying to get moved to California, as many of the decisions made here will to some degree influence Apple's legal moves. Apples attorneys won't have direct involvement in this RED vs Jinni Tech case but I think they would be pretty incompetent if they did not follow up with due diligence in watching and dissecting the steps taken in this RED vs Jinni Tech case. To do that that they will rely on the many of the filings and reports coming up in many of the legal forums and case study sites that are discussing this particular case. You only have to search online and will find that this case raises a lot of interest in many legal circles including academic, judicial and case law studies where interpretation of court rulings is of great interest.

I'm am definitely no legal beaver but for sure but can form opinion as is the prerogative of most of us in living in a free "society" so I can only hypothesize but I believe the crux of the matter is not what the patent covers re sensor or codec capabilities and technicalities. It appears really to be based around the patent filing date of the patent vis-a-vis the first showing and offering of the RED camera for sale. The fact that RED demonstrated and took orders at the NAB on or around April 25, 2006 appears to be the pivotal point in this case. RED's patent filing is dated December 28, 2007 as outlined below.

"The ‘385 patent also relies upon provisional application No. 61/017,406, (“406 provisional”) which has a filing date of December 28, 2007. The 406 provisional does not provide an enabling disclosure of the elements or components of a memory storage device. However, even if it did, the priority filing date for the ‘385 patent would still be be no earlier than December 28, 2007."

As I said it appears to the best of my knowledge that on or about April 25, 2006, at the NAB show in Las Vegas RED offered the camera for sale. There appears to be ample evidence from attendees, the press and video media sources that this did indeed take place.

Herein lies the rub from a point of patent law as I see it going by the following extract of the patent statute, particularly clause (b) where it states one year with reference to "loss of right to patent":

United States Code Title 35 - Patents:

https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/mpep-9015-appx-l.html#d0e302376

35 U.S.C. 102 (pre‑AIA) Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent.

"A person shall be entitled to a patent unless —

(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States, or
(c) he has abandoned the invention..."

Chris Young
 
Fascinating assessment.

Conspiracy Alert:
It could be that "a friend of Apple" is talking to Jinni and giving them pointers for their next video. The first videos were primarily abut the REDmag. Now Jinni have suddenly veered off in to the RED patents and sensors. The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend? Also as Jinni were already doing it it saves Apple stooping to that sort of thing. As "appalled" as Apple are by Jinni's antics I expect they will quote the publicly revealed information on court and refer the public to it.

Non-RED users can look at this dispassionately.

However RED did shake up the market and as some one noted *now* other makers have similar spec cameras at similar price points. Would they have done without RED?

Lets face it we all needed a distraction from Trump on one side of the pond and Brexit on the other. :-)
Just realised both of those stories have been running for about 3 years! We need a change of focus.
 
Last edited:
Mitch Gross said:
Not sure what it would mean there, but here it meant I was briefly interesting to these kids.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know what you meant. I was musing on what my kids and their mates would think if I started talking camera nerd to them - I don't think cool would be their description:-)
 
Mitch Gross said:
What I find annoying is that many of the points in JinniMag’s videos have nothing to do with his product or his disagreement with RED. They also have nothing to do with Apple’s disagreement with RED. They appear to mostly be about making RED look bad and perhaps to illustrate a history of behavior for RED. Little of it has legal significance and some of it is rather misleading. In the end I find that weakens JinniMag’s position, not strengthens it.
Click to expand...

Do you find it annoying when journalists expose criminal activity that has nothing to do with their interests or disagreements with the exposed subject?

I would think it speaks to Jinni's credibility that they're not trying to sell more Jinnimags with these videos.
 
Benjobe said:
That's funny. Jinni has been very successful in exposing several lies and misdirections by RED and yet you find Jinni incredulous?
Click to expand...

So you believe everything Jinni says, eh?

And you base your belief on... wishful thinking?

Of COURSE I'm incredulous. I want proof one way or another before I make assumptions about one side or the other being correct.
 
Benjobe said:
Do you find it annoying when journalists expose criminal activity that has nothing to do with their interests or disagreements with the exposed subject?
Click to expand...

Not a great analogy. Journalists are professionals, bound by codes of conduct/law, and their work is usually heavily scrutinized by others before publication to ensure complete accuracy. Jinni has pointed out some truths, but he's also jumped to a bunch of conclusions for which he offers virtually zero evidence. That's pretty annoying behavior to me.

I would think it speaks to Jinni's credibility that they're not trying to sell more Jinnimags with these videos.
Click to expand...

Just because he's not putting a "buy Jinnimag" link in the description does not mean he can't profit from this, nor that publicity for his own efforts could be his primary motivation in releasing these videos. (I doubt it is, seems more like a vendetta.) He did recently request funds for more of this.

The guy definitely found some interesting and damaging things out, but to people who value facts and logic above all else, his wannabe True Crime docs that mix facts with heavy doses of speculation aren't doing much for him. If he's comfortable flexing the truth in one area, who is to say he isn't in an other?
 
it does feel a bit that Jinni has a bit up his rear about RED but...in this day and age it should be a lesson to any company that "
the man behind the curtain is not what he was said to be"...can and will be revealed eventually.

i appreciate RED in a lot of ways but geez do they blow it out their bottoms. much of this basic stuff being revealed about their media & sensors etc they sold knowing they were nowhere near the truth. yet...if you dont sell it "big" would they have gotten off the ground without all of their smoke and mirrors & hype that their products (not camera as much) were special and had the unique RED sauce.

like would Apple have been as successful if Steve Jobs hadn't been there? i think not. Jobs made you think bigger and better of their products so i think its fair to say a company "sometimes" benefits from this kind of hype.

honestly im enjoying RED getting outed as its just Karma coming back to them.

david
 
I think this whole thing is going to get a lot messier before it gets cleaned up due to a couple of fairly recent patents both of which has J. Jannard along with G. Nattress and one Mr. Uday Mathur. The second one, GREEN IMAGE DATA PROCESSING, is especially interesting as this is almost an outline of what Apples ProRes RAW does, luminance with a lookup table. I can see Apple looking at this one hard. Grant Petty from BM alluded to how ProRes RAW worked in an NAB video interview at the 6:33 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQHH-o_rmK8

Uday Mathur is interesting as he has a solid pedigree in ASIC design and joined RED in 2008 as a digital system designer and was responsible for the embedded system design of the Academy Award-winning RED Epic. He later led the design of RED's DSMC2 line of cameras, the Panavision DXL, and several custom cameras built with RED technology. I think any chip and sensor innovations since 2008 and claimed by RED as their inventions are probably pretty bona fide due to him being there. Prior to 2008 though RED really looked to be a system aggregator. Picking and choosing bits of technology. No problem with that as many companies do that, and charge handsomely for it. ARRI acknowledges that in their case the ALEV III sensor was designed in conjunction with and built by ON Semiconductor. People accept and respect transparency.

https://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/newsItem.do?article=3723

Where I see a lot of people getting upset with RED is that they have claimed prior to 2008 that they 'invented' a lot of the technology they used, including the sensor and their R3D Redcode. There is little to substantiate that with regards to the sensor to the best of my knowledge. In fact Dr. Eric Fossum, generally credited as being the designer of the original and first CMOS sensor (and there have been many iterations of CMOS since) said in October 2012 "Oddly I have never met or heard of an image sensor designer who works for RED." I think it's this hiding behind other peoples inventions and claiming them to be your own is what is hurting RED the most on their reputation front. The more they deny and litigate against anyone who dares contradict their statements the more potential buyers might feel wary of getting involved with RED. RED's loss I guess. I can only assume that the profit loss from the sale of cameras RED Inc. might be a fair bit smaller than any potential royalty payments from companies like Apple if they can win their case on internal RAW recording.

I watch on with interest!

Chris Young

1st patent

VIDEO CAMERA
Publication number: 20180124290
Abstract: Embodiments provide a video camera configured to capture, compress, and store video image data in a memory of the video camera at a rate of at least about twenty three frames per second. The video image data can be mosaiced image data, and the compressed, mosaiced image data may remain substantially visually lossless upon decompression and demosaicing.
Type: Application
Filed: September 7, 2017
Publication date: May 3, 2018
Inventors: James H. Jannard, Thomas Graeme Nattress
https://patents.justia.com/inventor/thomas-graeme-nattress

2nd patent

GREEN IMAGE DATA PROCESSING
Publication number: 20180070061
Abstract: Embodiments provide a video camera that can be configured to highly compress video data in a visually lossless manner. The camera can be configured to transform blue, red, and/or green image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data. The camera can be configured to transform at least a portion of the green 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, blue, and/or green image data to obtain the original raw data or 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 at least some of the green image elements are demosaiced first and then the red, blue, and/or some green elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements.
Type: Application
Filed: July 21, 2017
Publication date: March 8, 2018
Inventors: James H. Jannard, Thomas Graeme Nattress, Richard Greene, Uday Mathur
https://patents.justia.com/inventor/uday-mathur

EDIT:

Wwith a view to transparency and keeping up to date here is the latest I have found from Dr. Eric Fossum:
https://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2019/09/red-camera-sensor-conspiracy-theories.html

Eric R FossumSeptember 22, 2019 at 10:05 PM

Here is part of what I wrote to the (same) person who sent me the link:

"Thanks for sharing this video. I did not watch it in full detail, but it certainly looks well investigated and produced. I will say my small consulting with Forza in ’07 had nothing to do with RED. Other than that, I didn’t see anything that I disagreed with that pertained to me, particularly as it drew from things available on the web, which never forgets! (At least not so far).

Personally, I doubt the revelations in this particular chapter will come as much surprise to the image sensor community. If designed by Forza, they were incredibly tight-lipped about it, yet it seemed some people knew something, perhaps via other sources or their own investigation as exampled in this video. On the other hand, at the recent 2019 Int. Image Sensor Workshop, I finally ran into someone who claimed to manage a large team of sensor designers at Red. So my statement about never meeting a sensor designer from Red probably needs to be relative to the time of the statement. I don’t recall his name and I can only take his word that he was a sensor designer or manager of sensor designers.

I have also had occasion to look at a few patents of Jannard et al. The modular camera invention seemed like a nice innovation and the USPTO granted them a patent. Between that and the success of RED, I have to admire Jannard’s entrepreneurship and tenacity at entering this market with a better and successful series of products (some not so successful, like with any company)."
 
Last edited:
Benjobe said:
Do you find it annoying when journalists expose criminal activity that has nothing to do with their interests or disagreements with the exposed subject?

I would think it speaks to Jinni's credibility that they're not trying to sell more Jinnimags with these videos.
Click to expand...
I find your analogy puzzling. My complaint was about the misrepresentative nature of some of JinniMag’s statements and how some of the information “exposed” was of nothing greater than gossip or details that might embarrass RED but hardly rise to the level of deceitful much less criminal.

There is some interesting stuff in the videos. There’s also some crap and I pointed that out. Including such material weakens the strength of the good stuff and that was my point.
 
Mitch Gross said:
There is some interesting stuff in the videos. There’s also some crap and I pointed that out. Including such material weakens the strength of the good stuff and that was my point.
Click to expand...


You are not that first that I've seen make that same observation, Mitch. Others have also expressed that the Jinni-guy goes too far and in that weakens his position / credibility.

The whole thing is ugly, sordid, and unfortunate. And imo something better left off this forum. No need to pile-on here on dvxuser when there are already lengthy discussions of the matter over on reduser and few here are RED owners anyway.
 
JPNola said:
You are not that first that I've seen make that same observation, Mitch. Others have also expressed that the Jinni-guy goes too far and in that weakens his position / credibility...
Click to expand...
Conjecture and lack of context is all over the established media. Throwing the kitchen sink to disparage an opposing view point is mode de rigueur in 2019.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jcs
JPNola said:
The whole thing is ugly, sordid, and unfortunate. And imo something better left off this forum. No need to pile-on here on dvxuser when there are already lengthy discussions of the matter over on reduser and few here are RED owners anyway.
Click to expand...

Except that they are already on their 3rd thread. The first two have been pulled. Reduser is also an integral part of the marketing formula for RED cameras, so that is not a surprise. Who knows how long this last thread will survive ?

I actually made this comment over on the REDuser forum, but for whatever it's worth this is my viewpoint with regards to the vehemence of the debate :



Why is anyone surprised that RED was using inexpensive consumer parts for their hyped products ?
Frankly, any brand that creates a context of us vs. them (RED against the world) and consciously seeks to encourage "loyalty" in this manner is already cause for concern. You can be sure that this kind of situation will create opportunities for wider profit margins. In fact it is so obvious that I am surprised that anybody is surprised. The anger here is not because the components are a lot cheaper than what people paid for. I don't actually even begrudge RED for doing this. A camera is after all more than just the sum of it's components, and it is after all an american company in a capitalist, consumer economy that found new ways to advertise itself. [read RED forum]

The anger here is because loyal users expected more loyalty from RED. They cannot believe that it is not a two way street. They cannot believe they have been taken (at least partially) for a ride.

It's all about loyalty and betrayal. It's an emotional issue.

What goes around comes around. If you ask your enduser's for their loyalty and then you use it as an opportunity to create extra profit margin (otherwise known as marketing), you had better expect great anger and a sense of betrayal. You had better expect that the fall from the pedestal is going to be particularly hard and brutal.

Jinnimag is an example of disruption. So what happened to Jannard's love of disruption, when the target is his own company ? Self-righteous defensiveness and lawsuits (business as usual). Why ? Because rebels always make the best dictators. And their mirror always shows up.

Both sides are angry. Both sides are arrogant. Both sides feel betrayed. And in the middle of all of this is the end user, who also feels betrayed.

The lesson here is that you had better be careful when you base your existence on building loyalty in an us vs. them scenario. It always ends in the same way.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top