Looks like Adobe, whom developed the open standard for raw digital stills (Digital Negative - DNG), is now undertaking a cinematic equivalent, called "CinemaDNG". Guess what? Cineform is working with them!

Read it here:

http://www.3dworldmag.com/page/3dworld?entry=adobe_starts_initiative_to_develop

and here:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200804/041408AdobeCinemaDNG.html

Great to hear that Cineform will be a part of the CinemaDNG initiative.

Geoff Murillo

This is huge. I can't speak for the impact on digital cinema, but I can speak for what DNG has done for still photographers:

You capture raw sensor data, manipulate that data in an adobe application (crop, color, etc.), which is done non-destructively as the manipulations are instructional data that is embedded within the raw file. Keywords and IPTC data are also embedded. Other adobe and third party applications whom use the open standard will then recognize and work with that data. Your manipulations and metadata intact in the DNG file.

I hand off my DNGs to other photographers, whom open the DNGs with my edits intact. They in turn can manipulate the data further, or even reject the data and go back to the original raw sensor data and start over. It's non-destructive.

Emagine something similiar to digital video and film. Neat.

Hard drives around the world can be heard crying... This is awesome news though :)

I guess RAIDs around the world must be cheering then.

How does this kind of "open standard" affect companies such as Red? Does it have any impact?

If this means a new universal way of changing video, into a codec of choice for NLE- this should be huge!

When the Digital Negative standard was established, did they also put forward a preferred compression method for RAW images (i.e. a lossless system)? I know very little about high-end stills photography, so please excuse my lack of knowledge on the topic...

I'm just curious... If camera manufacturers start producing cameras in the not-too-distant future that have the ability to record RAW data (like the Red and others now do), will there be a "universal" compression method? Or will there just be a RAW standard, and each manufacturer will develop their own compression scheme?

Or is this more planning for the future when new hardware exists that can store the huge amounts of data RAW frames would require?

Chris, I cannot answer to the what exactly the open standard will be for digital video. However, taking RAW imaging for photography into account, it's a good bet it's for the same reasons. (I can only speak to my workflow, so someone please chime-in if correction is needed).

All camera's record in RAW format. However, the consumer cameras have their converters already built in to create either jpegs (for stills) and DV or mpegs (for video). With such camera's you get the flexibility of small files sizes and form factors, but you're stuck with their compression scemes.

Shooting and aquiring RAW allows you to determine and control how the data will be converted in the convenience of your own taste, at the penalty of large file sizes.

You can still edit and use your manufaturers software, so RED shouldn't change, and why would they? Their software will still do the job. However, with an open standard, you would have a choice.

DNG (for stills) was created to deal with the possibility of losing an archive due to the loss of supporting format and hardware, etc.

It provides us photographers an alternative to being locked into a vendors system. This in addition to non-destructive datasets and editing. This also provides an open door to outside vendors to create applications that may enhance or provide even better support than OEMs.

Obviously adoption is the key here.

does anyone even use DNG? i'm a very active member on a couple photography forums, and have never even heard of anyone using it as a standard workflow format --only for noodling around.

As a matter of fact, yes.
In fact, there are even still cameras that will shoot natively in DNG as their RAW format.

Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Negative_%28file_format%29

I personally use it whenever I shoot RAW.
I have found that the DNG files routinely occupy ~1/2 the space of the RAW original. My DSLR is a Pentax *ist DL, so your results may/will differ.
And it takes very little time to do the conversion.

The real justification for DNG is you have no problem reading your cameras RAW files now, but will that still be true in say, 20 years?
There are RAW file formats out there that are no longer supported by their manufacturers. So you have to ask, will yours be different, and if so, why?