Good god. I feel like this is Litepanels all over again. I wish I had the patients to read all that patent crap and figure out what the hell they are talking about. Anyone care to explain to a lazy american what that means? :)

Soon they will complain they lost sales cause of GH2(hacked and GH3 ... :-)

I have interesting theory.

In my opinion RED goal here is to force Sony to make deal to manufacture sensors for RED. As Sony has most modern tech and best engineers in this area. And it looks like RED is having big issues finding manufacturer for sensors.

@010101

I'll tell you this. Only one thing stop RED from being extinct - Japanese managers. As adding raw into modern cameras is very easy, just requires few modifications.

I've read through the first and skimmed the second patent. They are very generalised and it would seem that almost any 4K camera that seeks minimal compression would fall foul of these patents.

Some of claims are no more than matrix arithmetic -- why oh why are patents granted on stuff that is not proper invention.

I imagine a world where one of the photo camera manufacturer would have patented raw like 10 years ago, where photography would be now. There have been many compression etc method with no law suit (at least I did not see it). If Jannard was so confident about the Dragon sensor why try to block his competitors with lawsuits.

The guy made many strategic errors with red camera. One was the 3k for 3k camera. Even if it was not the original plan camera at this price point, a much more affordable raw camera would have been a success and would have broaden red market a lot. The BMC is the living example and ones it ships in volume it will have a profound impact on the cinema/indie market and undercut cameras like the scarlet. People will own and will rent only when there is a need for things like slowmo.

Now he has to face some other competing cameras that will undercut his market with some unique technologies. While Jannard was pissed that did not have the DR crown. And that everybody was talking so much about the DR of the Alexa, he shoots for that. In the meanwhile Sony puts out a camera with global shutter at a competing price to his Epic. Who needs more than 14 stop of DR if you global shutter. His competitor are coming with more balanced product. That is why he is reacting now with patent lawsuits, just when the F5/F55 of this world are coming out.

Looking at some of the info, it seem as if red has patented camera that would do raw from 2k and as from 23 frame per second. So imagine a world where Haselblad would have patented cameras more than 16 megapixel, or Intel about processors of more than 1 ghz. It is that ridiculous.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev

"Because no one skilled really reads them. System collapsed quote long ago."

Absolutely.

Check out the lawsuits section ( halfway down the page ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema_Camera_Company#Lawsuits

It must be embarrassing for an entity like RED to have a list like this out there. I mean, there are " dismissed " and " pending " cases against individuals as ... wait for it .... ANDREW REID ( a blogger ) and WOODEN CAMERA and a few titles that were out of business long ago. I wonder why Phil Bloom is not there. After all he crapped on Epic camera against the EOLA he had agreed to at the time of purchase! After all this SONY is going to be a little bigger kid to get bullied around the playground. As Vitaliy suspects RED must so disparate that their hand is forced to this bluff.

@GH2UW, Good one ! I remember somebody got kicked out from reduser forum for encouraging angry ( disappointed ) members on the case of 3K/$3K. I'm sure someone could start a class action suit if the breach of promise is actually court worthy - even for the heck of it.

To think that Red actually encouraged and wanted more competition in the 4K/raw category back when Scarlet was finally being introduced opposite of Canon's C300 reveal, and now that the competition has come, it's lawsuit up!

As far as "greatly injuring the general reputation of Red;" Red needs only look at itself.