After a long absence of almost 3 years, Jinni.Tech is back on YouTube and he has posted Part 5 and Part 6 of his look into RED. Part 6 is titled REDCODE = QuickTime? A Complete Guide to REDCODE & CineForm – Cinema Camera RAW recording.
If you are not familiar with Jinni.Tech, it is the YouTube channel of Jinni Technology Ltd., which makes the Jinnimag, a range of RED MINI-MAG® Compatible media options.
In this latest episode on YouTube, Jinni.Tech discusses what is inside a REDCODE .r3d file? Can it be viewed directly like a QuickTime video? And why does it need RED’s specific players?
This video explains the key claims of the RED patent claims and compares it with the CineForm RAW, and earlier (though not patented) wavelet RAW codec.
I encourage anyone who is interested in the topic to do their own research and look at both sides of the story. This video is just based on one person’s research and opinions.
Jinni.Tech also posted a few notes, corrections, and clarifications:
- 9-7 seen in the JPEG2000 is not a bit divisor between high and low pass. That’s the number of coefficients in the FIR filter and is irrelevant to the bits used. However, 9-7 requires twice as much operation as 2-6 in the CineForm adaptation. That is due to the CineForm codec aims to reduce the compute.
- RED’s green averaging is more CPU intensive than CineForm’s. However, apparently, the softness in the RED’s footage is due to 2 factors: the blur applied to the output; and their poor demosaicing algorithm.
- The “pre-emphasis” curve in RED’s patent is the inferior gamma curve and not a better log curve, thus the RED one’s poor performance in the shadows.
- It seems that in the early editions of the RED One camera, RED didn’t do anything to the RED color.
There are always two sides to any story, but nonetheless, the video raises some interesting points. However, at the end of the day, RED was granted a patent, and regardless of how you may feel about it, they were smart enough to get it issued. Once any company has a patent, it will legally defend any actions taken by competing companies that intend to use that technology. That’s just business and it happens across all industries.
