Mokara

Two points to note: 1) Simply producing a device that does something first does not necessarily make it novel. It doesn't matter if no one else had such a camera at the time, as long as the idea was bandied about that in itself would be sufficient to destroy novelty. Likewise if people had done similar things and it was obvious that those similar things could be combined. 2) They talk about preprocessing as a component in their workflow. Presumably with no preprocessing their claims would not cover the general concept. And even with processing, they should only be getting claims where they use a specific method of preprocessing. If the patent office is doing their job properly, IMO the broad claims should be disallowed.

Short answer: No.

Everyone does it if they can remotely get away with it, for the simple reason that it discourages competition, especially from upstart new players in the industry.

He is a director. I doubt he knows anything about the technology involved. From my perspective it looked pretty vague when I looked at the patent in question. Some of their more specific claims might be valid but I don't see how one could argue that the general ones would pass the obviousness test.

Most of those companies are small and cannot afford to get into a protracted legal battle. It is cheaper for them to just license or otherwise avoid the IP. This happens all the time in the tech world. In fact, companies will just file random patents covering all sorts of things in their general field of interest they have no intention of developing since their mere existence is usually enough to persuade other companies to do something else. Basically laying down minefields. This is one of the flaws of the patent system. While it fine for protecting the investment of genuine inventions, it is also used extensively as a weapon to inhibit otherwise legitimate competition. Did they impose a NDA on you regarding the settlement?

That is ridiculous. Basically what he is saying is that equipment to do compressed raw over 2k was not practical at the time. It is obvious that it could be done however, and would be once technology had advanced to the point where it could handle the bandwidth involved. How on earth did this get past the PTO?

What should be more scary for RED is going into a courtroom where everyone knows Apple and uses their products, but have never heard of RED.

Their claim is for the method used, not the concept in general. As long as they did not offer explanation on how the method worked prior to filing they are still ok. Just saying that you are going to do something is not prior art, since at that point the method itself is a trade secret, and it is the method that is the subject of the patent. Showing the method to individuals/companies under a NDA is not public disclosure either. If they were demoing their stuff in public where people not covered by NDAs could examine and use it, then that would be public disclosure.

Personally I would have thought that their broader claims would have failed in court if challenged due to issues with the obviousness requirement for patents. Claims being obvious to one skilled in the art is the most common objection made by the patent office. There are ways around that though, you can file a statement to the contrary and that would usually overcome the objection (as long as you are not too egregious about it), but it significantly weakens the patent if challenged later in court. Normally you would want to convince the examiner that they are wrong without resorting to that for that reason. Almost every patent issued would have been subject to these objections in some form btw, they are extremely common when you make a filing. I would be very surprised if the raw compression claim did not receive an obviousness objection when it was filed. It seems like a pretty obvious thing to me and the fact that you require more than a certain percentage of compression suggests that other people have been doing similar things previously, just not with that level of compression. An application made under circumstances that the PTO regards as intent to deceive can result in a patent being ruled invalid. That includes non-disclosure of relevant information, since you have a duty to inform the PTO of any information that you are aware of that might have a bearing on the patentability of your claim. As far as people who might have licensed this IP, they are out of luck, they won't get their money back if the patent is ruled invalid for some reason.

If they are using the Digic 8 then the video capabilities are probably not going to exceed the EOS-R. Unless magic is a thing now A new codec from Sony would imply a new processor as well, since the processor does that in hardware. A new processor will also likely bring an increase in other specs, such as frame rate, resolution and bit depth along with the codec.

Do you need a swat team to come and rescue you?

Right. Except that in blind tests photographers overwhelmingly chose the Sony colors. Canon came last.

This was brought to my attention on another website. What do you guys think about this guy's opinion?

That is not the point. The S1 is a hybrid with a video emphasis. Of course it will be beaten by other hybrid cameras that have a stills focus if you are shooting stills, but it is never the less a hybrid that is very capable as a stills camera, unlike the BM products. If you need a hybrid camera in your workflow you will not buy the BM camera unless you were hit hard on the head as a child.

The S1H will kick the snot out of this thing as a stills camera.

Unlikely that most S1H buyers would take this instead. The S1H is a hybrid, the BM camera is not.

Which year?

So, find some puppies, put them in some dire life threatening situation, then "rescue" them?

The 860 Evo still works fine. Just make sure you use the 1TB version or higher (sustained write speeds drop off in the smaller capacity drives relative to the pro versions, but are the same for 1TB and higher capacities). https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Samsung-860-Pro-1TB-vs-Samsung-860-Evo-1TB/m434505vsm423831

I am using a 860 Evo, it works fine.

So, Sony generates a overheating warning at a lower temperature? You can disable that warning you know, and that allows you to shoot for much longer.

Cell phones use variable frame rates to do it, as well as other compromises. That would not be acceptable on a proper camera. Comparing them is apples to potatoes. Cellphone processor development, especially the ISP portion, is funded by the sales volume those items have. Proper cameras have nowhere close to the same sales volume, so it is far more onerous to make the sort of investment necessary for constant improvement. Sure, you could make a camera that had a cellphone processor in it, but it would shoot cell phone video, and I am pretty sure that almost everyone here would be screaming outrage if a camera did that. The delay is due to the need for higher specs, such as 4K60p, and the inability of the current Bionz X to deliver that in a hybrid body. They needed to wait because the existence of Panasonic's latest cameras with their 4K60p specs meant that the a7SIII would not be competitive if it did not have that spec, since it's selling point is that it is a video centric camera. They have to have specs that at a minimum match Panasonic or the camera will be a commercial failure. Not rocket science dude.

You don't need other people, if you have something to offer then just do it. Otherwise you don't really have anything to offer.

Meet new young people then. Most I know are much more capable and mature than the ones I knew growing up. They get exposed to the greater world sooner these days and it does make a difference. Those companies don't need to market to everyone though, they only need to market to the people who have use for such things. Bruker for example does just fine, it is an 8 billion dollar company, but the equipment they make will not be used by 99.999% of the worlds population. Actually, they have evolved to work from sunrise to sunset, lol. In neolithic times life was a constant struggle to find enough food to survive. It is only in the last hundred years or so that people got a lot of free time. Before that free time was a luxury.

Sony have a lot of processors like that as well, the only difference is that they keep the same name for them while Canon and Nikon add numbers for each new variant. The Digic 7 and 8 are not all that different, the main difference between them and earlier Digic processors was the inclusion of 4K capability in the ISP (which would have required a redesign, likely by whoever their vendor is). 4K was not included in the cameras with Digic 7 because the ISP ran too hot without active cooling, so 4K was limited the Digic DV5 (the video camera version of Digic 7). Digic 8 had a restricted version of the ISP to manage the heat output, that allowed it to be used in stills cameras. Btw, this is why the C200 has RAW and a consumer codec (it uses the Digic DV6 processor, which is the video analog of Digic 8 , rather the pro codec used in the earlier DV5 cameras. All of these processors are systems on a chip. Usually they have one or more ARM cores as the actual processor, with one or more image signal processors to handle what is coming off the sensor. Sony have a lot of variants of Bionz X, all with a quad core ARM Cortex A5 together with one or more CXD4236-1GG image signal processors, together with some other logic. They don't give the variants different names like Canon does, but Canon does the same thing. So you will see most Sony cameras since about 2014 using Bionz X processors, but these processors are not all the same. The CXD4236-1GG is Sony's third ISP, and they are due for another one since it is old and showing that age. My guess is that this will happen with the a9II and/or a7SIII. Delays in getting the new ISP ready have likely led to delays in these cameras as well, since Sony wants their flagships to have competitive video included, especially the a7SIII. Body size and shape has nothing to do with it. Nor does "deliberate crippling" and "holding back". The tech they have available at the moment simply can't do what you want. Developing an ISP from scratch takes a lot of time and resources, which is why most camera companies license the designs from third parties and include them in their processor. For a limited product market like the one Sony has for cameras, this can't be done all that often, not without drastically increasing the price of their cameras. Canon don't do it, Nikon don't do and Sony does not do it. The only companies that have the resources and manpower to do this on routine basis are the ones that produce cell phone processors, such as Qualcomm and Samsung (which is why it really sucked for us when Samsung left the camera business). That is where you will see the cutting edge video performance, but those processors are designed to support cell phones, not conventional cameras. That is because modern cameras and cellphones are computers. Cellphones can get technology updates rapidly because they have the volume to fund that development. Cameras on the other hand do not. So you will always see cameras lagging behind cellphones when it comes to computational capability. But eventually it trickles down, and then the inherent superiority of proper cameras means that they produce better images. This is not likely to change. It is just that electronic cutting edge in cameras will be one step behind cellphones.