Andrew Kolakowski wrote:Looks like RED patented whole idea about compressing RAW (in camera or outside). Very strong patent, which causes a lot of problems for everyone who is not happy to pay them fee.
Best way to avoid it is to do something with RAW signal where you can't really call it RAW anymore, but keep it 100% recoverable later in the post if needed.
The patents are only valid in the US, the rest of the world declined these patents.
Since Hollywood is still the main producer of big movies a lot of camera/recorder manufacturers paid a license fee, found an other solution(like BMD with BRAW) or had more patents(Sony).
With storage getting cheaper by the day (Samsung PM883 7.68 TB $ 1300 SATA-drive vs. Red Mini-Mag 0.96 TB $ 2.350 mSATA-drive vs. Micron 9300 15.36 TB $ 2.600 U.2 NVMe drive) who needs in camera data compression, ARRI never did and they are still the benchmark.
You can always compress the RAW data with RAW4PRO to Cineform RAW (4:1 compression has the same quality as RED 5:1 compression) when you want to save storage space.