‘They are Destroying the Camera Industry’: RED Slammed Over Patents
YouTuber and software engineer Theo from t3.gg has called out RED for preventing other companies from making cameras that can compress video captured in 4K RAW or higher.
The YouTuber, who has over 100,000 subscribers, took to the platform with a video entitled “RED is destroying the camera industry.”
“[RED] are actively killing other camera businesses and working so hard to make sure other companies can’t compete,” he says.
Theo points out that RED made a vital innovation early on when it created a sensor that could record digitally in 4K and higher resolutions in a RAW format that is also compressed.
Compressed RAW on video cameras is a vital feature because it means that all of the extra information that shooting in RAW gets is saved, but in a way that doesn’t immediately fill up storage or bog down editing machines.
“RAW compression is necessary in order to do shoots at that quality level,” explains Theo.
“RED’s patent is for compression on a camera of RAW video. You cannot compress 4K or higher RAW on a camera without RED’s blessing and if you try — they will sue you.”
Indeed, there is an ongoing lawsuit between RED and Nikon, and the latter is fighting RED’s actual patent with the claim that it should never have been approved to begin with.
“The very concept of compression on a 4K plus camera for RAW video is patented by RED and they patent troll the hell out of anyone competing with them,” adds Theo.
DJI
DJI was granted the ability to have some level of RAW compression for its drones but when the company made a non-flying camera, RED prevented the company from using the RAW compression technology, even threatening to remove the license for the drones, according to Theo.
“Now DJI is stuck selling a $7,000 camera that can’t record RAW… That is the default state of the industry now because RED likes to troll their competition with patents that probably shouldn’t have been granted in the first place,” he says.
“The entire industry is being held back by RED’s bulls***… I really wish the industry could continue innovating and rewarding innovators like DJI for the hard work they’re doing but they get punished for not being there first and that sucks.”
PetaPixel reached out to RED for comment, but the company did not respond ahead of publication.
