RED respond to Apple in compressed RAW patent battle

[Kisaha]

10 minutes ago, tweak said:

I know, I have an E2  . What I meant is that they would implement Raw that would currently infringe on REDs patent.

Oh! Ok, my bad!

From what I have seen Braw is good enough for everything though and the starting price of 1295$ is ridiculous anyway. 3 years ago you needed more money to buy a GH4!

Braw is license free also (I think),  and Cineform went open source a few years ago.

There is also the Ursa series, imagine what we'll be getting for 5495$ soon..

What it is that we are missing now for low budget productions? If you are shooting a big production (1.000.000$€£ and upwards) would you be using a P4K and Braw (you could, but you would?!)? I do not know. All seem relative.

I believe that before, companies just didn't care. Sony wanted to sell you the extra raw software and/or hardware update, and no way we were having raw on a 6xxxx camera! Canon sells an 8bit 420 camera, plus Raw-light, for 5-6 times the P4K. It is all relative.

Now, it seems that Apple wants to change the game. It probably will. Video is the big thing now, and the next step is some kind of raw. It is happening and it is already here.

[Mokara]

8 hours ago, Skip77 said:

I found this on a site about h.264 license.  

Q: Is it safe to use such patented algorithms?
A: Patent laws vary wildly between jurisdictions, and in many countries patents on algorithms are not recognized. Plus the use of patents to prevent the usage of a format or codec on a specific operating system or together with specific other software might violate antitrust laws.  So whether you are safe or not depends on where you live and how judges interpret the law in your jurisdiction.

That depends on if it has been agreed to as a standard (the patent holder has to agree to this, some third party can't just decide to make it a standard). And even then you still have to pay the license fee, it only caveat on the patent holder being that they can't pick and choose who to license to.

You don't have the right to demand access to patented technology unless you are the government.

1 minute ago, Kisaha said:

Oh! Ok, my bad!

From what I have seen Braw is good enough for everything though and the starting price of 1295$ is ridiculous anyway. 3 years ago you needed more money to buy a GH4!

Braw is license free also (I think),  and Cineform went open source a few years ago.

There is also the Ursa series, imagine what we'll be getting for 5495$ soon..

What it is that we are missing now for low budget productions? If you are shooting a big production (1.000.000$€£ and upwards) would you be using a P4K and Braw (you could, but you would?!)? I do not know. All seem relative.

I believe that before, companies just didn't care. Sony wanted to sell you the extra raw software and/or hardware update, and no way we were having raw on a 6xxxx camera! Canon sells an 8bit 420 camera, plus Raw-light, for 5-6 times the P4K. It is all relative.

Now, it seems that Apple wants to change the game. It probably will. Video is the big thing now, and the next step is some kind of raw. It is happening and it is already here.

You can record RAW without infringement, as long as the compression used is under 6X. Anything from 0 to 5.9X compression would be fine.

Another way to circumvent the RED patents is to record the different colors onto separate cards, essentially 4 files, one red, one blue and two green. These could then be compressed as much as you like (since they are separate videos). The user could then reconstitute the full color image in post. 

[Video Hummus]

But did Kinor already have a working camera that was compressing Bayer data with a wavelet compression before RED in 2002-2003? It was shown at NAB allegedly. 

[cpc]

Without detracting from Graeme's work, it should be made clear that none of the algorithmic REDCODE specifics described in the text are non-trivial for "skilled artisans". I don't think any of this will hold in court as a significant innovation.

 

A few notes:

Re: "pre-emphasis curve" used to discard excessive whites and preserve blacks.

Everyone here knows it very well, because every log curve does this. Panalog, s-log, Log-C, you name it, do that. In fact, non-linear curves are (and were) so widely used as a pre-compression step, that some camera companies manage to shoot themselves in the leg by applying them non-discriminatively even before entropy coding (where a pure log/power curve can be non-optimal).

JPEG has been used since the early 90's to compress images. Practically all images compressed with JPEG were gamma encoded. Gamma encoding is a "simple power law curve". Anyone who has ever compressed a linear image knows what happens (not a pretty picture) to linear signal after a DCT or wavelet transfrom, followed by quantization. And there is nothing special, technically speaking, about raw -- it is linear signal in native camera space. But you don't need to look far for encoding alternatives: film has been around since the 19th century, it does a non-linear transform (more precisely, log with toe and shoulder) on the captured light.

In an even more relevant connection, Cineform RAW was developed in 2005 and presented at NAB 2006. It uses a "pre-emphasis" non-linear curve (more precisely, a tunable log curve) to discard excessive whites and preserve blacks. You may also want to consult this blog post from David@Cineform from 2007 about REDCODE and Cineform: http://cineform.blogspot.com/2007/09/10-bit-log-vs-12-bit-linear.html

 

Re: "green average subtraction":

Using nearby pixels for prediction/entropy reduction goes at least as far back as JPEG, which specifies 7 such predictors. In a Bayer mosaic, red and blue pixels will always neighbor a green pixel, hence using the brightness correlating green channel for prediction of red and blue channels is a tiny step.

 

Re: using a Bayer sensor, as a an "unconventional avenue":

The Dalsa Origin, presented at NAB 2003, and available for renting since 2006, was producing Bayer raw (uncompressed). The Arri Arriflex D-20, introduced in November 2005, was doing Bayer raw (uncompressed). Can't recall the SI-2K release year, but it was doing Bayer compressed raw (Cineform RAW, externally) in 2006.

 

[Andrew Reid]

Does anyone have the patent battle papers for Sony v RED?

Are these not public?

I would like to see how this was decided and in whose favour.

[Video Hummus]

37 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Does anyone have the patent battle papers for Sony v RED?

Are these not public?

I would like to see how this was decided and in whose favour.

There was no decision by the court. They by all accounts reached a settlement outside the court.

Gizmodo picked up the story with even the details about what happened in 2010 with regards to Andrew. It’s a good summary of what’s going on with a bit of speculation as to why this is happening.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/why-is-apple-flexing-on-high-end-camera-company-red-ove-1837302653/amp

Apple doesn’t like to pay royalties on its smartphone products because they like their fat juicy margins too. They sued Qualcomm over it.

Which makes me think this lawsuit is about some kind of royalties Apple doesn’t want to pay for selling its products. Wether that is the new Mac Pro cheese grater, ProRes Raw, or RAW recording on an iPhone or all of the above. 

[Andrew Reid]

Hmm. I just I wish people like Gizmodo would run the story past me first to check if I am happy for them to run it and make their opinions on it, before taking it to big wild world.

1 hour ago, Video Hummus said:

Gizmodo picked up the story with even the details about what happened in 2010 with regards to Andrew

Update - just read it

[Video Hummus]

1 minute ago, Andrew Reid said:

Hmm. I just I wish people like Gizmodo would run the story past me first to check if I am happy for them to run it and make their opinions on it, before blabbering about it to the world.

Wow, they didn’t contact you about it? Even to see if they could get more details about that aspect? Pretty lazy. 

[Video Hummus]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Of course it's fucking lazy. There are no good journalists left at these fucking places.

Again though I am missing any mention of me in the article or the 2010 stuff, did they ninja-edit it out afterwards or something?

 

Looking like they Ninja edited it. I have it cached. The link clicks through to your article. 

[Stanly]

Still there for me, "sign a non-disparagement agreement" links here:

https://www.eoshd.com/2019/08/jinni-tech-claims-red-compressed-raw-patent-filing-is-invalid/

[Video Hummus]

Stanly is quoting the Gizmodo article ?

That phrase links to your blog. See screenshot above I posted.

[Andrew Reid]

Ah I see, yes I see it as well now.

Going to get in touch with them.

[Shaocaholica]

I can’t even find the Gizmodo article.

[Stanly]

@Andrew Reid even though I do agree on Gizmodo's journalism quality, nonetheless it's still part of the same free-speech world all of us are in favor of. They are free to share publicly available info, it was also encouraged just days ago.

@Video Hummus thanks for understanding mate! Weird someone could assume it's possible for a person to be that silly as well as manage getting through registration on a forum.

@Shaocaholica https://gizmodo.com/why-is-apple-flexing-on-high-end-camera-company-red-ove-1837302653

[BTM_Pix]

31 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Perhaps they ninja editing back in. Well the can fucking ninja edit it back out again as far as I'm concerned

If there was anything Ninja related they probably had to pay a license fee to RED to use it  

[Andrew Reid]

Well the US is a feudal state!

[Oliver Daniel]

Interesting. 

I speculate this.... Apple wants to sell a shit load  of Mac Pro’s by putting the power of ProRes RAW and FCPX at the core of pro workflow. So they want more pro cameras with ProRes RAW capability. RED have said “you can’t” so Apple have said “erm...we will”, as Apple wants the pro market, no matter what. 

Just for fun of speculation, I hope Apple get ProRes RAW clear, more cameras shoot with it, RED make their cameras more affordable (Komodo?) and Apple allows RED to use ProRes RAW as part of the deal. 

For what it’s worth, the RED image is awesome and REDcode is awesome - so I hope it’s a case of “everybody wins”, whatever happens. 

[Video Hummus]

4 minutes ago, Oliver Daniel said:

 For what it’s worth, the RED image is awesome and REDcode is awesome - so I hope it’s a case of “everybody wins”, whatever happens. 

I can see valid arguments on both sides of this story. It’s not like RED doesn’t have street cred in the industry. 

[Shaocaholica]

Not everyone will have the same optimistic view of a winning scenario.  A win for an observer may as well be a huge perceived loss in both income and reputation for either party.

[etudiant]

33 minutes ago, Shaocaholica said:

Not everyone will have the same optimistic view of a winning scenario.  A win for an observer may as well be a huge perceived loss in both income and reputation for either party.

Don't think so.

Apple is hugely bigger than RED, if they lose, it is only bit of money.

RED however is fighting for its life, a loss would almost certainly decimate the enterprise value and make an outside takeover vastly more likely.