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Can somebody give a ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is? I was always under the impression that it's just a dump of the "raw" uncompressed and uncorrected data

Can somebody give a ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is? I was always under the impression that it's just a dump of the "raw" uncompressed and uncorrected data coming from the sensors, meaning it's hardware dependent and unstandardized, and Wikipedia seems to agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format So what exactly is patentable here? Or is this the bone of contention here?

picture 2mo ago
It's not the idea of RAW that's being patented, but rather components of "Red RAW" that includes things like compressing before debayering, as the other comment points out. I also remember hearing something about Red having a patent on directly recording to swappable SSDs or something ridiculous like that as well..
anon48293 2mo ago
It is. What was patented was the compression: “ The camera can be configured to transform blue and red 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 and blue data to obtain the original raw data for 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 the green image elements are demosaiced first and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements.”
hebelehubele 2mo ago
> ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is Video with high bit count per pixel. A finished video is 8-bit per pixel, but RAW video contains 10 to 14 bits per pixel, often in a camera-specific LOG format which has very low contrast and saturation and looks washed out. All of this helps preserve much of the detail and allows creators to have more flexibility in post-processing.
- verall 2mo ago
  > has very low contrast and saturation and looks washed out When shown under naive linearization and compression rather than good tone mapping I totally get what you're saying and that is how film people talk about it but as a camera engineer it's annoying that people think washed out low sat is some intrinsic property of log.
- BLanen 2mo ago
  No, its about (de-)bayering. It's before the concept of multi-color 'pixels'.
wmf 2mo ago
I think the patent literally covers the idea of a camera that records raw video internally. (Still cameras supported raw for years before Red existed.)

picture 2mo ago

It's not the idea of RAW that's being patented, but rather components of "Red RAW" that includes things like compressing before debayering, as the other comment points out. I also remember hearing something about Red having a patent on directly recording to swappable SSDs or something ridiculous like that as well..

anon48293 2mo ago

It is. What was patented was the compression: “ The camera can be configured to transform blue and red 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 and blue data to obtain the original raw data for 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 the green image elements are demosaiced first and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements.”

hebelehubele 2mo ago

> ELI5 of what "RAW video" actually is Video with high bit count per pixel. A finished video is 8-bit per pixel, but RAW video contains 10 to 14 bits per pixel, often in a camera-specific LOG format which has very low contrast and saturation and looks washed out. All of this helps preserve much of the detail and allows creators to have more flexibility in post-processing.

verall 2mo ago
> has very low contrast and saturation and looks washed out When shown under naive linearization and compression rather than good tone mapping I totally get what you're saying and that is how film people talk about it but as a camera engineer it's annoying that people think washed out low sat is some intrinsic property of log.
BLanen 2mo ago
No, its about (de-)bayering. It's before the concept of multi-color 'pixels'.

wmf 2mo ago

I think the patent literally covers the idea of a camera that records raw video internally. (Still cameras supported raw for years before Red existed.)