Nikon buys Red?

[mercer]

2 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

Its too soon for a collaborative work. But all they have to do, for now, is add REDCODE and active cooling to upcoming Z6III, and call it RED Phoenix or something, with $3k price.

This has probably been in the works for at least a year, if not longer, so it should be possible to introduce RedCode with their next big release. 

[JulioD]

That’s what I’m saying. 
 

Nikon bought RED so they can do N-RAW and stop their competitors from using internal RAW. 
 

win win

[PPNS]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

What would be the point then?

Now nikon gets to be the patent troll. Red will probably get to pretend to remain a company for 2 years and then nikon will probably fire the entire workforce, and we get to hear about “the constantly changing landscape of media” in some press release justifying the gutting of the company.

[KnightsFan]

Probably Nikon has wanted to acquire a cinema company for a while. When Nikon first announced Z mount, they mentioned cinema a lot, but never backed that up with a full feature set. There were little things, like the tripod locating pin (so critical for solid cinema rigs). And of course supporting Raw outputs. But Nikon didn't make the big jumps, like timecode, internal NDs, XLRs. Maybe they wanted to, but didn't quite have the tech, personnel, etc. and buying out a smaller company was the easiest option.

So really there are three possible futures.

1. Red's tech moves to Nikon's mirrorless cameras. Redcode perhaps, accessory compatibility e.g. their new EVF, the global shutter sensors.

2. Nikon's tech moves to Red. Z mount, autofocus, or even simple things like LCD screens, mirrorless-size EVFs. And the other huge category: lenses. Perhaps some of Nikon's excellent optics will find their way into cinema housings, either in PL or Z mount.

3. Nothing changes, but Nikon owns a more diversified product line

[ntblowz]

I really welcome a Red Powered Nikon FX3/FX30 competitor with Redcode, I would chuck out my FX3/FX30 in a beat!

[mercer]

2 minutes ago, kye said:

We all know the camera and imaging industry is being disrupted heavily, first with the move to digital that sunk Kodak, then with smartphones slowly eating the whole industry from the bottom up, and now right at the start of generative AI.  In situations like this market consolidation is an enormous game of 9-dimensional chess, so this move will be the result of more analysis than a person could read in a week, even if we had post-graduate qualifications in corporate law, economics, and accounting.

It's not like Nikon was sitting on a huge pile of cash to begin with - in this phase of a market disruption where the manufacturers are literally fighting to stay alive if this wasn't a great match for the two companies across many/most factors then it will be a mistake that might cost them everything.

I feel very confident being a reader of this former for the past decade to fully understand every aspect of this acquisition. 

[mercer]

2 hours ago, JulioD said:

That’s what I’m saying. 
 

Nikon bought RED so they can do N-RAW and stop their competitors from using internal RAW. 
 

win win

I'm saying that they bought Red so they could own RedCode and everything that goes with it. I think NRaw was just a stop gap and will disappear or become their uncompressed Raw format. I wouldn't be surprised if the current version of NRaw is just RedCode under a different container.

[mercer]

2 hours ago, PPNS said:

Now nikon gets to be the patent troll. Red will probably get to pretend to remain a company for 2 years and then nikon will probably fire the entire workforce, and we get to hear about “the constantly changing landscape of media” in some press release justifying the gutting of the company.

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I could not care less about Red's patent. It held up in court and I am a firm believer in intellectual property so whatever. And I don't believe raw video is for most videographers, so I don't see the point of it being in most cameras. But again, whatever. 

[mercer]

1 hour ago, KnightsFan said:

Probably Nikon has wanted to acquire a cinema company for a while. When Nikon first announced Z mount, they mentioned cinema a lot, but never backed that up with a full feature set. There were little things, like the tripod locating pin (so critical for solid cinema rigs). And of course supporting Raw outputs. But Nikon didn't make the big jumps, like timecode, internal NDs, XLRs. Maybe they wanted to, but didn't quite have the tech, personnel, etc. and buying out a smaller company was the easiest option.

So really there are three possible futures.

1. Red's tech moves to Nikon's mirrorless cameras. Redcode perhaps, accessory compatibility e.g. their new EVF, the global shutter sensors.

2. Nikon's tech moves to Red. Z mount, autofocus, or even simple things like LCD screens, mirrorless-size EVFs. And the other huge category: lenses. Perhaps some of Nikon's excellent optics will find their way into cinema housings, either in PL or Z mount.

3. Nothing changes, but Nikon owns a more diversified product line

Doesn't Nikon license their AF from Sony when they purchase their sensors? If that's the case, will future Red cameras have Sony sensors if they have AF?

[mercer]

5 hours ago, andrgl said:

Right? This is such a wildcard change in the industry.

I was planning to switch to an R5 and R5C combo this year for Canon's 28-70MM f/2 zoom.

Now I'm going to wait and see what happens. I own no mirrorless glass so I have no bias, I'll choose whatever platform that suits me.

Exactly. I don't even know what to think. I wasn't planning any upgrade anytime soon, so I can wait to see how things pan out, but how Canon responds will definitely sway me one way or the other.

Hell, this was so out of left field, that for all I know, Canon could announce they bought Arriflex next week.

[JulioD]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

I'm saying that they bought Red so they could own RedCode and everything that goes with it. I think NRaw was just a stop gap and will disappear or become their uncompressed Raw format. I wouldn't be surprised if the current version of NRaw is just RedCode under a different container.

There is nothing special about REDCODE.  It was sold for a long time as some special mojo.  

It not even wavelet anymore.  It’s been DCT based since Komodo.  Like ProRes and BRAW.

They will keep N-RAW because it’s their own “brand” and now they own the IP.  It’s not like REDCODE is better.  It’s all the same. They don’t need REDCODE and they don’t need to licence it either. 

[sanveer]

2 hours ago, mercer said:

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I could not care less about Red's patent. It held up in court and I am a firm believer in intellectual property so whatever. And I don't believe raw video is for most videographers, so I don't see the point of it being in most cameras. But again, whatever. 

Unless it had the original Cinema DNG ratios that Blackmagic Cameras had (3:1 5:1 8:1 12:1). Despite the huge compressions, those should still be superior to H.264 and H.265 based codecs. 

[newfoundmass]

If it was any other company but RED I'd be pretty disappointed to see another company getting bought up. But in this case the only thing that upsets me is that the assholes running RED are all getting PAID. 

Nikon has clearly been trying to get their foot in the door when it comes to video users, so buying RED makes all the sense in the world. Now it just depends on what they do with it. 

[newfoundmass]

6 hours ago, mercer said:

What would be the point then? Red isn't a huge company with large profits but they do have RedCode with a great plug in workflow. I'd think it's the only reason for Nikon to purchase Red. 

A loyal customer base and a foothold in Hollywood is a pretty significant reason to purchase RED if a company is looking break into that market. 

With this purchase Nikon leap frogs Canon when it comes to cinema cameras. Not a lot of Hollywood blockbusters filming on Canon cinema cameras, but some of the biggest ones are filmed on RED.

[kye]

3 hours ago, mercer said:

Exactly. I don't even know what to think. I wasn't planning any upgrade anytime soon, so I can wait to see how things pan out, but how Canon responds will definitely sway me one way or the other.

Hell, this was so out of left field, that for all I know, Canon could announce they bought Arriflex next week.

Man, that would be something!  This Nikon/RED thing came from left-field, but a Canon/Arriflex announcement would leave me not knowing what to think!

In terms of what this means for the mirrorless market, I think it's potentially a good thing - I'll be waiting to see what Nikon does with this in the next few years.

2 hours ago, JulioD said:

There is nothing special about REDCODE.  It was sold for a long time as some special mojo.  

It's well respected in post-production for being a good codec to edit and colour grade (efficient with computer resources etc).  The people who know how to colour grade don't really care much about the image from the high-end cameras because they're all flexible enough in post to get what you want from them, but the codec performance is a real thing.

[MrSMW]

There is one thing in this acquisition of RED that I am sure of and that is all future Nikon cameras will remain black. Even if they have any kind of badging that reads RED.

Joking aside, I could see a 2 tier camera here: Nikon Black (line) and Nikon Red (line) cameras.

The same bodies, DSLR and box style, but with different levels of tech with Black being more stills/hybrid focused and Red being more video.

 

[MrSMW]

8 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

Its too soon for a collaborative work. But all they have to do, for now, is add REDCODE and active cooling to upcoming Z6III, and call it RED Phoenix or something, with $3k price.

I want a Nikon Z6iii RED Phoenix now just because of the name!

But probably too soon…??

The Z6iii must have been in development for a while now and should be appearing fairly soon…

I suppose it’s not unrealistic for them to add another codec at this time, but unless something has been cooking behind the scenes for some time, it’s probably unrealistic?

I am still very interested to see what the Z6iii might be, even if it’s the non RED Phoenix edition as part of my possible wholesale move back to Nikon for both my stills (current platform) and video needs, for 2025.

[Eric Calabros]

14 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

But probably too soon…??

The Z6iii must have been in development for a while now and should be appearing fairly soon…

The thing is Nikon really wanted to have a dedicated video camera in the line up, but I assume they figured removing EVF and adding couple of Fn buttons, as Sony tends to do, is not enough. 

[JulioD]

1 hour ago, kye said:

 

It's well respected in post-production for being a good codec to edit and colour grade (efficient with computer resources etc).  The people who know how to colour grade don't really care much about the image from the high-end cameras because they're all flexible enough in post to get what you want from them, but the codec performance is a real thing.

No it’s not well respected by post.  Thats myth.  I’m going to guess you aren’t in post at a high end facility.  Nobody I’ve met likes or prefers REDCODE over other raw codecs.

Owner operators who own red cameras are the only ones who talk like this.

It’s a high bit depth raw codec and that’s all it has going for it.  It’s actually not that efficient.  ProRes plays back faster. ProRes RAW plays back faster.  BRAW plays back faster.  Why do you think they sold stupid things like RedRocket?

Most high end post output of RED didn’t use REDs own cards for final render because the debayer looked better with the internal decodes of the native app.

It was the first conceptually raw codec(maybe depends what you think of Cineform) but it’s not efficient at all in playback.  Thats why they moved to DCT. As the resolution went up, playback gets harder and harder with Wavelet.  

[Ilkka Nissila]

7 hours ago, mercer said:

I'm saying that they bought Red so they could own RedCode and everything that goes with it. I think NRaw was just a stop gap and will disappear or become their uncompressed Raw format. I wouldn't be surprised if the current version of NRaw is just RedCode under a different container.

Nikon use intoPIX's TicoRAW  for high-efficiency encoding of raw stills and raw video. It's a different algorithm from what RED is using. RED's patent has been suggested to be invalid anyway, as RED demonstrated it in a camera more than one year before applying for the patent (which was Nikon's counter-argument when RED sued them and so the case was settled outside of court, which also happened with Jinni Tech who used a similar argument). I doubt very much Nikon bought RED for the patents but simply to get a foothold in the higher-end video camera market.