<story><title>RED is suing Nikon for infringing on its video compression patents</title><url>https://nikonrumors.com/2022/05/26/red-is-suing-nikon-for-infringing-on-its-video-compression-patents.aspx/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jeffbee</author><text>Aren&amp;#x27;t there still plenty of cameras using 3 separate sensors and an optical beam splitter, instead of a Bayer filter array?</text></item><item><author>chongli</author><text>For those who may not be aware: digital cameras capture a grayscale image with a single value per pixel. The image sensor is covered by an array of colour filters (red, green, blue) in a pattern called the Bayer pattern. Typically, one row of filters will alternate RGRGRGRGRG and the next row will alternate GBGBGBGBGB. &amp;quot;Debayering&amp;quot; involves interpolating the colour-filtered grayscale values of neighbouring pixels into each pixel, and then often applying some software filtering to remove dead pixels, noise, and sharpen the image.</text></item><item><author>ryandamm</author><text>I haven&amp;#x27;t pulled the patents, but they probably have to do with compressing the pre-debayered image. Apple sends Red a big check every year for the same patents; I believe they&amp;#x27;re part of ProRes but not sure.&lt;p&gt;Essentially, by compressing the raw RGB data coming off the sensor (where each pixel only has R, or G, or B) you avoid the data explosion of interpolating color values at each pixel. It&amp;#x27;s a technique for compressing raw files, and Red was early to the game.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps someone on here has more detailed technical info, I haven&amp;#x27;t actually read the patents, just talked to engineers close to the project.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paulmd</author><text>No, nobody uses a 3-strip&amp;#x2F;3-sensor approach anymore.  It was used in the early Technicolor process, and was revived during the digital era with cameras like the Minolta RD-175, and it lingered on in cine cameras for a while longer, but nowadays almost everyone uses a bayer-filter approach (or a very similar one - there are several proprietary alternatives for the mosaic layout that claim various quality improvements).&lt;p&gt;The only similar thing nowadays is Foveon sensors where you have 3 color sites stacked on top of each other, but Foveon didn&amp;#x27;t really have the money to keep up with the arms race and nowadays the modern sensors are far better even though they do have to apply a low-pass filter to avoid mosaicing.  When you have many, many, many nodes of improvement past the Foveon sensor, that stops being a big deal.&lt;p&gt;It was also never particularly widely adopted, because none of these things are new - it was a tough sell to market a &amp;quot;really high color-resolution!&amp;quot; 5mp camera going up against 20mp filtered sensors and 50mp unfiltered sensors even 10 years ago.&lt;p&gt;Interestingly though, the Foveon approach is similar to film.  Film has multiple layers and all are exposed at once.  There&amp;#x27;s no denying bayer is sort of weird.  It&amp;#x27;s just very expensive to be the odd man out doing your own sensors.  &amp;quot;Good enough&amp;quot; usually wins, Foveon may be betamax but bayer is VHS - and I use that analogy knowingly, in the sense of Betamax also doing key features worse in areas that consumers care a lot about.</text></comment>
<story><title>RED is suing Nikon for infringing on its video compression patents</title><url>https://nikonrumors.com/2022/05/26/red-is-suing-nikon-for-infringing-on-its-video-compression-patents.aspx/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jeffbee</author><text>Aren&amp;#x27;t there still plenty of cameras using 3 separate sensors and an optical beam splitter, instead of a Bayer filter array?</text></item><item><author>chongli</author><text>For those who may not be aware: digital cameras capture a grayscale image with a single value per pixel. The image sensor is covered by an array of colour filters (red, green, blue) in a pattern called the Bayer pattern. Typically, one row of filters will alternate RGRGRGRGRG and the next row will alternate GBGBGBGBGB. &amp;quot;Debayering&amp;quot; involves interpolating the colour-filtered grayscale values of neighbouring pixels into each pixel, and then often applying some software filtering to remove dead pixels, noise, and sharpen the image.</text></item><item><author>ryandamm</author><text>I haven&amp;#x27;t pulled the patents, but they probably have to do with compressing the pre-debayered image. Apple sends Red a big check every year for the same patents; I believe they&amp;#x27;re part of ProRes but not sure.&lt;p&gt;Essentially, by compressing the raw RGB data coming off the sensor (where each pixel only has R, or G, or B) you avoid the data explosion of interpolating color values at each pixel. It&amp;#x27;s a technique for compressing raw files, and Red was early to the game.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps someone on here has more detailed technical info, I haven&amp;#x27;t actually read the patents, just talked to engineers close to the project.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kelsolaar</author><text>Consumers camera use a Bayer colour filter array because it is cheaper and more compact. Demosaicing is performant enough for most consumer applications that it is hard to justify for anything than scientific applications. As a matter of fact, even Motion Picture cameras, e.g. ARRI LF, are using a Bayer CFA.</text></comment>