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Comment by andy_ppp | Hacker News Reader

This could actually be pretty interesting, don’t RED have a patent on compressed raw video? I’m amazed that this patent is allowed but I guess we’ll see Nikon cameras with more advanced video features and probably increased difficulty offering ProRes compressed raw for other manufacturers. I hate software patents so much.

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I believe so. Although RED was always being super mysterious and hype-y about it their RedCODE codec is ultimately just JPEG2000 so hopefully Nikon can relax this situation somewhat, which would be a benefit to all manufacturers.

Doubtful Nikon will relax it, just use it as a cash cow to get licensing revenue (like Red has) or as a competitive moat if they stop licensing it

Yeah, RED tried to sue Nikon over it:

https://petapixel.com/2023/04/27/reds-lawsuit-against-nikon-...

Yeah I think this will be huge for in-body RAW.

I think Nikon is more likely to play patent licensing than REzd and we’ll see more ProRes RAW offerings going forward.

So uh compressed raw would be just like a regular (loss-less) compressed image format, then? I thought the distinction between raw and non-raw was the use of lossy compression formats like JPEG.

RAW is in linear light. Think spring-fresh, straight from the ADC.

JPEG is in perceptual (~log) light. Out of the tap, terrible.

It's also compressed.

There are lossless and lossy compressed RAW formats.

Wow. The tap water isn't so good, where you are then?

RAW doesn’t denote compression, contrary to the name.

In Still cameras, it usually means pre-debayering.

On film cameras, it is a little more muddled but usually just means linear colourspace and higher bit depth.

In the case of red’s patents, the relevant issue for RAW compression is that the sensor values are compressed before de-bayering. It’s still lossy.

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