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Nikon to acquire RED
- esafak 3y agoRed was a revolution when it came out in 2007, offering 4K for under $20K! When I heard the announcement of its development I wondered how a guy who made sunglasses was going to pull it off.
- pvarangot 3y agoYeah I thought it was a scam. To be fair some of the most ridiculous things they announced when they put up the website, like the IMAX camera with a sensor that would basically take a wafer end to end to cut, didn't come out.
- th0ma5 3y agoI wonder if they will relax scrutiny of use of CinemaDNG, or honestly if Nikon produced CDNG that would be cool.
- chaosprint 3y agofirst reaction is that in we will see raw inside nikon internal recording soon
- hnenjoyer_93 3y agoZ8 and Z9 already record 8K60 12 bit RAW internally, but of course more cameras joining the list is welcome
- andy_ppp 3y agoThis 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.
- dagmx 3y agoYeah 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.
- kristofferR 3y agoYeah, RED tried to sue Nikon over it: https://petapixel.com/2023/04/27/reds-lawsuit-against-nikon-dismissed-z9-gets-to-keep-compressed-raw/ https://petapixel.com/2023/04/27/reds-lawsuit-against-nikon-...
- royjacobs 3y agoI 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.
- dharma1 3y agoDoubtful 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
- unwind 3y agoSo 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.
- Espressosaurus 3y agoRAW 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.
- andybak 3y ago
- hnenjoyer_93 3y agoInteresting that some time ago Red filed a lawsuit against Nikon for using a RAW video compression algorithm that Red claimed infringed its patents, but later dismissed it: https://dpreview.com/news/5338402238/red-is-suing-nikon-for-video-compression-technology-used-in-its-licensed-n-raw-video-on-the-z9 https://dpreview.com/news/5338402238/red-is-suing-nikon-for-... https://dpreview.com/news/9301564383/nikon-denies-red-s-lawsuit-concerning-compressed-raw-patents https://dpreview.com/news/9301564383/nikon-denies-red-s-laws... https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/28/red-patent-lawsuit-against-nikon-dismissed/ https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/04/28/red-patent-lawsuit-ag...
- 7moritz7 3y agoAm I reading this right in that Red has somehow managed to patent the idea of compressing 4K RAW footage on device which holds up the whole industry?
- KaiserPro 3y agothe patent is this one: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7830967B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7830967B1/en Which looks like it's patenting debayering. However I'm not a patent lawyer so I don't know. I suspect that Nikon were using something like jpeg2000 to store raw frames, and thats why RED were getting all pissy.
- hnenjoyer_93 3y agoMaybe, Redcode is based on JPEG2000 https://youtu.be/IJ_uo-x7Dc0 https://youtu.be/IJ_uo-x7Dc0
- KaiserPro 3y ago> Maybe, Redcode is based on JPEG2000 Oh it is JPEG2000, I _think_ it used to be stored in a tar-like wrapper, but I could be misremembering. however It is 100% JPEG2000.
- ryandamm 3y ago
- th0ma5 3y agoPrevious discussion about their legal relationship: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532285
- bayindirh 3y agoIt's good for Nikon, IMO. Canon and Sony both have cine equipment. This will level the field. While I moved to Sony, I don't want to see dominance, but competition.
- dylan604 3y agoThis will level the field? If you think Canon's cine options are equal to Red maybe it levels it. However, I think this tilts the field away from Canon to Nikon's favor while leaning more toward Sony as well than Canon. Maybe Canon can tilt it back in their favor if they were to buy Alexa.
- dagmx 3y agoCanon don’t really care about the same cine market. Their bread and butter is more documentary, indie and news style shoots instead. They’ve never shown an interest in competing outside of that.
- bayindirh 3y agoRED, Canon and Sony's cine equipment fills different niches, Sony having the broadest spectrum in the bunch. They're an audiovisual company for decades, which can handle/design/build the whole pipeline from acquisition to production to reproduction. However, from what I see, Canon is filling a very specific niche and they're good at it. RED is the same. So, it will not level the big three "capability" wise, but Nikon will have a hand (and feet) in cine market, which will provide them great feedback, development avenues and some cash hopefully. So, they'll be able to compete in one way or another.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoCanon absolutely owns the video market, in many ways. Different context from RED, but you see Canon DSLR video cameras everywhere, especially consumer-level stuff, like streamcasters. Most videos you see, by semipro influencers, and whatnot, are recorded on Canon kit. Also, the TV and movie industry makes heavy use of Canon DSLR kit for their work. It’s an interesting acquisition, and I wish them luck. The rub will be cultural clash. I don’t know anything about RED’s culture, but I know a bit about Nikon’s. They are … less-than-flexible. Culture clash has been the fly in the ointment, for most of Nikon’s partnerships.
- Zetobal 3y agoRight years after RED lost it's competitive edge sounds exactly like the thing Nikon would do. The weapon was the last camera with an advantage and it's now 8 years old?
- pixelesque 3y agoYeah... as someone in VFX who deals with plate footage from major films, in the past five years RED doesn't seem to be used that much these days: it's mostly ARRI/Sony... I think I've even seen more footage from Panavision (which often do have RED sensors) than RED cameras...
- formerly_proven 3y agoHahahaha This means Nikon acquires a license to Canon’s mounts due to the prior RED patent trolling.
- peterhull90 3y agoA role reversal from the 1930's - the first Canon cameras used Nikkor lenses! https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/nikon_canon.htm https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/...
- dboreham 3y agoDepends on the terms of the license. It could be written to exclude this kind of successor rights acquisition, or to apply narrowly only to RED-like products.
- justforasingle 3y agoPretty interesting. If you look on netflix approved camera list[0] there are none from Nikon. Personally I think RED cameras are overhyped and are a major reason most netflix shows all look and feel the same. I don't think its the colour grading or lenses - its something about the camera itself that just feels shit and doesn't give me the same access to a scene the same way something like sony's HDVS from 30 years ago does.[1] [0] https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000579527-Cameras-Image-Capture-Requirements-and-Best-Practices https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63flkf3S1bE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63flkf3S1bE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW26YMe8iUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW26YMe8iUQ
- m463 3y agoI remember first watching 4k HDR films (I remember gemini man in particular) and it looked different from previous films and I had to adapt. maybe too high res? Or maybe HDR eliminated artifacts like bloom or something that seemed to make it too perfect.
- pixelesque 3y agoThat's because Nikon don't have a cinema line of cameras, and the cameras they do have have only very recently added support for higher-end video features like log and ProRes RAW support.
- atoav 3y agoRed cameras are overhyped, but picture quality is not the issue. It is very likely that what you describe is more due stylistic differences in lighting, color grading and editing than due to the camera itself — coming from someone who professionally had to match colors on films shot on multiple different cameras on more than one occasion. Reliability is the main reason why Red cameras are overhyped, but you get good pictures and specs for the price, just like with black magic cameras but a notch higher. Most DOPs I know would go fo ARRI if given free choice.
- hef19898 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ryandamm 3y agoPreviously: RED Sues Nikon for patent infringement. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532285
- classified 3y agoGreat news, that should help them stay relevant. We will always want to make more movies.
- nubinetwork 3y agoI wonder if they will stop selling overpriced SSDs now...
- stephen_g 3y agoThey use regular CFexpress cards now (CFast on Komodo)
- lvl102 3y agoRED is a shitty company that relied on patent trolling the entire industry. It’s sad Nikon was basically forced to pay the ransom. RED is a classic example of what’s wrong with our outdated patent system.
- mmaunder 3y agoMakes sense. Blackmagic Design is a serious competitor to RED and got around their raw patent through partial debayering. Also lower price. Canon has been wiping the floor with Nikon this century. Now you have a legendary cinema brand with some solid fundamental technology to combine with Nikon lenses for a mid to upper market product play.
- Joeboy 3y agoUnfortunately my enthusiasm for BMD is muted by the extreme non-freeness of BRAW.
- mmaunder 3y agoWhat? It’s free. Perhaps you should read the history around Red as a patent troll, how they price gouge their media, etc.
- Joeboy 3y agoIt's free as in beer (for regular consumers anyway), but (unless you know different?) only available via obfuscated binaries, with no documentation of the actual file format. Correspondingly, it's the only video format I know of that I can't use industry standard open source tools like ffmpeg with. I'm very aware of the manifold ways in which RED suck. Edit: There's a certain irony about it. RED took a bunch of free stuff and pretended it was proprietary. BM created a proprietary format and pretended it was free.
- kuschku 3y agoThen I'll give you another one: ProRes RAW. Just the same as Braw, but even worse documentation.
- strogonoff 3y agoBlackmagic sold their cameras with support for CinemaDNG advertised, and removed that support after the fact, leaving only BRAW that more or less locked you into Resolve. This is a deal breaker for anyone using OSS processing pipeline, since 1) BRAW isn’t lossless, AFAIK and 2) it was impossible and to this day is problematic to convert BRAW to something raw development tools understand (DNG). Luckily, I noticed that just before I bought a unit (!). Now I’m a happy owner of a Sigma fp, which not only is sold with CinemDNG support—shows that BM did have some choice, after all—but is also technically superior. If I ever do something where their gear is required and someone leases it, sure, but I don’t see why I would give my personal money to BM after how they handled this.
- steveBK123 3y agoSmart for Nikon as they've been losing relevance somewhat to Sony/Canon, and not had a great video offering. So this immediately makes them a competitor in the space. Given how the stills & cine markets have contracted and converged, its unlikely Nikon & RED would survive in a healthy fashion as standalone for say the next decade.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- neom 3y agoJim Jannard, truly a brilliant and under discussed entrepreneur, probably because the guy won't let anyone interview him. From what I have managed gathered over the years, the guy is a seriously cool dude who and also a genius. "The one thing I will say about Jim is, he’s always been one to have a vision,” Takumi concludes. “When you think about people like that, you think about Steve Jobs, Elon Musk — guys like that. I mean obviously, you’re talking about sunglasses and cameras — [Jannard founded Red Digital Cinema in 2005] — but when you have that, really probably the only way to bring it to life is if you have your own hands on it.” https://www.gearpatrol.com/outdoors/a740060/jim-jannard-oakley-origin-story/ https://www.gearpatrol.com/outdoors/a740060/jim-jannard-oakl... https://www.oakleyforum.com/guides/oakley-founder-jim-jannard-interview/ https://www.oakleyforum.com/guides/oakley-founder-jim-jannar...
- cfr2023 3y agoI started following the RED story before those folks ever released a camera, and I liked their spirit and mission. Some time passed and ultimately it was Black Magic Design that accomplished what RED said they wanted to do. If you say you want to make high end cinema technology, or even just high quality imagery, accessible to the average person, a $17,500 price tag for just the camera body shows that you might have strange ideas about what constitutes an average person.
- stephen_g 3y agoThe most affordable kinds of cameras at the time that you could realistically use for something going to theatrical release was the (1080p) Sony F900 and then F950, which were in the $250K ballpark… Then the Arri D-21 came out, I can’t even remember what price but same ballpark, it was a bit higher than 2K res. $17,500 for 4K was wild, and it was insane they actually managed to deliver it with the RED ONE.
- cfr2023 3y agoAll good points, though following these acts of instigation for the industry, their competitors overtook them in the path to their goal.
- ramesh31 3y ago>If you say you want to make high end cinema technology, or even just high quality imagery, accessible to the average person, a $17,500 price tag for just the camera body shows that you might have strange ideas about what constitutes an average person. To be fair, their competition at the time was $200,000+ Panavision rigs that were completely prohibitive to independent filmmakers.
- cfr2023 3y agoA fair consideration indeed but a very relativistic use of terminology. $17,500 is not $200,000 that's for sure, but it's also not $5000 or $2500 or $100 (not that I expect $100 cine cameras). My only point is that their hearts were in the right place, but they may have ultimately done their best work as instigators. As well, despite my appreciation for their company, I never liked the images from their cameras.
- tombert 3y agoIt would be kind of cool Nikon is able to bring the price of RED cameras down. I've wanted a truly professional-grade camera for awhile, but I cannot justify spending $10k-20k for something that would fundamentally be a glorified toy to me (since I don't do anything professional with camera). I was hoping that pro-grade 4k cameras would drop to the sub-$500 mark by now, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Even the comparatively cheaper Blackmagic Pocket Cinema cameras are on the order of $2,000-$3,000. I guess the engineering for cameras that nice has fairly high "minimum cost" that can't easily be brought down by industrialization?
- atonse 3y agoIsn't 10k already pretty budget price for a _professional_ video camera? Like film class. At least the film ones (like ARRI Alexa) approach 100k and can be rented as a result. I think the panavision ones were even more back in the day, but not 100% sure.
- tombert 3y agoThat's fair, but using computers as an analogy: a professional-grade computer from the 90's (e.g. a Silicon Graphics machine) used in professional films would cost like $40,000, but now you can buy something orders of magnitude more powerful than a 90's era SGI workstation for peanuts; virtually any modern gaming rig made in the last 15 years or will outperform even a top of the line SGI from 1995, because computer hardware prices have benefited enormously from industrialization. I realize it's not apples to apples, but I first heard about the Red One 4k in 2008, about 16 years ago, but it doesn't feel like prices have dropped in the same way that computer prices have. In fact, it's hard to even get a used one from 2008 for less than a grand right now. I'm not even claiming that it's overpriced, not everything can drop to near-zero-margins like computer hardware can and make up for it in scale. I just really want to use a pro-grade camera and I don't want to spend $10+k to do it.
- atonse 3y agoYeah the Reds are really nice, but I (a consumer) haven't been able to tell the difference between what a RED can do and what, say, a $7k SLR type camera could do, film-wise. So honestly not sure if there is a market of people who can tell a difference between those AND people that are looking to cut costs on the camera because their film crew's time would be much more expensive. (Mostly thinking out loud, doesn't intuitively add up to me.)
- ein0p 3y agoThis is great news. As a long time (decades) Nikon user, their video support has been lagging lately even though the cameras and lenses are now the best they’ve ever been. I hope this means an improved, more “professional” video mode on future cameras as well, perhaps even shutter angle, fingers crossed
- jiggawatts 3y agoSomething that industry hasn't seemed to have noticed is that Nikon has recently released a couple of camera bodies that are very capable hybrid shooters. The Nikon Z9 and Z8 cameras can record up to 8.3K 60fps RAW video in-body[1], and the shutter speed is fast enough to be very nearly "global shutter". They also inherit features common to stills cameras but rare in video cameras such as eye-detect auto focus. Some samples I've found online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR5BV1L7tCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR5BV1L7tCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFkgs0GsbpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFkgs0GsbpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3cAwDwvK-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3cAwDwvK-M Notably, these videos were made by essentially amateurs. Even if the shooters are industry pros, they're still taking these shots on their own without a film crew and a professional setup. Just running around with a "normal" camera you can carry in one hand. I wonder if this is going to be a dead end now that Nikon has acquired RED. I have a sinking feeling that the product lines will be split again, and that the stills bodies will not get any new video features, which will be relegated to dedicated video cameras. [1] Something I've heard is that perceived video quality is more strongly correlated to the data rate than pixel resolution. These cameras can record at about 6,000 Mbps which is in the same league a "large format" and IMAX style cine cameras.
- lvl102 3y agoSony’s “affordable” global shutter A9 III likely changed the competitive landscape. For photography Z9’s stacked sensor is superb but videography is a different story.
- jiggawatts 3y agoI don’t see how. That sensor is only 6K and the global shutter makes no practical difference compared to Nikons “very fast” shutter. The Sony camera can only record up to 4K in-body, and only with h.265 or similar formats up to 10 bit. The Nikon can record full-frame RAW with 12-bit log, which is far more useful for colorists to work with than anything the Sony can record. Even the Nikon DX crop mode has more pixels and more HDR range than the Sony!
- MuffinFlavored 3y agohttps://vimeo.com/1340684 https://vimeo.com/1340684 skate - shot on red #1347 - 120 fps 15 years ago my "introduction" to who/what RED was
- KomoD 3y agoRequires a vimeo account
- canucker2016 3y agoI just had to enable javascript to view the video.
- KaiserPro 3y agoRED were the future, in 2012. However, now, not so much. They promised excellent resolution for a supposedly cheap price. At the time there was an explosion of "HD" cameras, a lot of them coming from modern DSLRs lead by the canon 5D suddenly opened up the world of good enough resolution and colour to the world. However at the time RED footage was a massive pain to deal with. redraw was JPEG2000, which from memory is wavelet based. In a world when GPUs were for graphics, CPUs couldn't decode rthe frames in anywhere near realtime. you could buy a $4k super fragile ASIC card that would allow decoding in real time, but it was a dick to use. It might have got better, but GPUs took over. However, the big problem with RED is that they over promised and under delivered. They had devoted fans who would foam at the mouth for any company or person that dared to be critical. THey didn't have a global shutter, they were quite noisy, and they were nowhere near as cheap to run as they made out. THey kept on making new products, but never managed to really execute them properly. For example they were going to make a 4k laser project that would blow cristie or barco out of the water. Turned out that it didn't work, and at IBC/NAB they were using an overdriven barco. The tech support people were very nice, however part of the cache of working there was "being in the know" so as soon as it came to getting techincal details you needed to make a decision (liek the redray) things went back to vague marketing terms. Arrl and Sony all make much better cameras, the might have less pixels, but much better dynamic range and optical resolution. moreover the workflow isn't shite and they are reliable.
- walrus01 3y agoSony and Canon have well established and respected, widely used cinema camera product lines. Nikon, presently, does not. You will not see Nikon cameras (video, not still image) being used for 'serious' film, tv or documentary production use right now. Acquiring RED gives them this product line and capability. I would also bet that if Jannard is a majority shareholder of RED, he's now 74 years old and wants to enjoy his retirement, so selling the company for a pile of money seems like a sensible move.