Nikon and RED just changed video cameras forever. Or at least they might have.
Imagine A JPEG Only World
To explain this, I need you to imagine something with me. Imagine a world where DSLRs and mirrorless cameras could only take photos in JPEG. In this world raw photography was never invented, so photographers always have to make sure they get their shot right in camera, because their ability to edit afterwards is severely limited. That world would suck, right?
Well, I am sorry to tell you that this world does exist. It just exists in the world of video, not photo. See, while photographers can buy pretty much any mirrorless or DSLR camera today and know it will take raw photos they can then manipulate extensively in Lightroom, things are very different in video. While there are some video cameras that can record raw internally, the vast majority require you to purchase an external raw recorder like an Atomos, which greatly adds to the bulk of your filmmaking setup.
Why Does Your Camera Not Support Internal Compressed Raw?
Now why is this? Why have we not seen greater innovation in the space of internal raw video with most cameras? Well, it all comes down to a little camera company called RED and how they completely disrupted the filmmaking market in the early 2000s.
In short, RED was one of the first companies to create a digital cinema camera capable of recording raw video. But what they and their engineers realized was that unlike raw photos, where you are taking a few frames at a time, recording 24 frames per second of raw video means the file sizes are going to get out of hand very quickly. To avoid this, RED created a compressed raw video format that essentially makes the file sizes dramatically smaller while not losing any of the video quality.
This was revolutionary, because at a time when raw video was in its infancy, RED had created a way to make it viable for essentially any camera to record high quality raw video at a relatively small file size. This was also the turning point, the moment where the world of video as we know it was created, because instead of video following photo, where every single DSLR and mirrorless camera you buy these days can take raw photos, RED instead chose to patent this compressed raw capability and make it so that their cameras are the only cameras capable of recording compressed internal raw video.
This was huge, and it has had massive repercussions for the video industry as a whole. RED essentially blocked the rest of the camera industry from doing something as basic as video compression. But I also cannot really blame RED for it. They saw the opportunity to create a major differentiating factor for their cameras and they took it, and the patent office said, that looks good to us.
Here is where I and other people have a problem though, and that is with the patent RED chose to file. To be clear, I am not a patent lawyer, so this is just the best of my understanding, and RED fanboys, please do not kill me either.
Anyways, RED’s patent for their compressed internal raw video has been called overly broad, and that is something I completely agree with. See, the way the patent is worded does not just protect the specific way RED compressed their raw video. It basically precludes any other camera manufacturer from implementing compressed internal raw video in even a remotely similar way.
This is why your Sony camera, like the one I am using to record this video right now, cannot record internal raw and instead needs to use an external recorder. It is also why Canon was able to implement internal raw video in something like the R5, but the file sizes are truly ginormous, because they are not allowed to compress that internal raw video.
In short, if a camera manufacturer implements compressed raw video internally in their camera, RED’s lawyers will very quickly act to sue them. RED has sued Sony for trying to implement compressed internal raw in their cinema cameras. They have sued Kinefinity. They are rumored to have threatened DJI for planning to include compressed internal raw in the Ronin 4D. And they have even sued Apple. Yes, Apple, the mega company that you know can afford good lawyers. It did not matter. All of those companies ended up not including compressed raw video in their cameras.
Now, I am sure you are thinking, what about Blackmagic? They have compressed raw video in their cameras. You are correct, but they did not initially. The original Blackmagic Cinema Camera recorded uncompressed raw to avoid RED’s patent, and it was not until Blackmagic created Blackmagic RAW, which is compressed raw but is not true raw, it is actually partially de-Bayered, and this is getting way too complicated. Just know that it is a different enough raw to keep RED from suing them, but just barely.
Nikon Just Changed Everything
Anyways, here we are in 2023 at the time of making this video, and up until this point RED has been suing essentially any company that implements compressed raw video into oblivion. But hold up, because the story ain’t over yet. We have one last camera company to talk about, a little company that has been around almost 100 years longer than RED, called Nikon.
In 2022 Nikon released the Z9, which is fantastic, and which I also reviewed. You can watch my Nikon Z9 review here. A few months after releasing that camera, Nikon released a firmware update that added the ability to record compressed internal raw, almost as if they were daring RED to sue them. And sue them RED did.
But instead of rolling over, Nikon chose to fight RED in court. And in April 2023 a very surprising thing happened, something that if you had asked me to predict, I never would have guessed. Nikon won. Kind of. Or at least they essentially won.
See, one of RED’s biggest strengths as a camera company is their patent on raw video recording, and I really think they do not want to have that patent invalidated in court. While I do not know exactly what happened between Nikon and RED, I am betting Nikon got really close to invalidating RED’s patent, and so instead of letting that happen, RED and Nikon essentially decided to settle. Specifically, in legal terms, RED’s case against Nikon was dismissed.
That means two big things. First, Nikon gets to continue using compressed internal raw recording in their current cameras, as well as, I assume, all of their future cameras, like the Nikon Z8, which also has raw recording. This is huge. But on the flip side, because the case was dismissed and no official ruling was made, RED still gets to keep their internal compressed raw recording patents.
How Nikon And RED Just Changed Video Cameras Forever
So what does all this mean for the future? Well, as I said at the start, I believe Nikon and RED may have just changed video cameras forever, because I believe this is the first sign of a crack appearing in RED’s armor, and the first of what I hope is a larger shift toward the world of video looking more like the world of photo, where compressed internal raw video recording is available in every camera.
RED still holds their patent, but clearly Nikon got them to blink in court, and I really hope all the other camera companies RED sued and won against in the past are taking notice. I would love to see Sony, Canon and others discover what Nikon did and work to relitigate things with RED, so they will be able to implement compressed internal raw recording in all of their cameras in the future.
Is that going to happen? I do not know. But for the first time in literally decades, we have the potential to see a lot of innovation in the internal compressed raw recording space. And I cannot help but feel that if all of these camera manufacturers were working on compressed raw, we would see dramatically smaller file sizes, and filming in raw would not be some novelty you only do if you are filming a feature length film or a documentary. People could be filming in raw for any video, because the file sizes would be so small.
If you want to watch more about Nikon and what they are doing with compressed raw, here are my Nikon Z9 review and my Nikon Z8 review.
I will also link my color presets, which will get you amazing colors in your video regardless of whether you are filming in raw or not.
If you want to go deeper, I have filmmaking courses here, and here is my full list of filmmaking gear.
Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day!