Encrypted: RAW

I was reading over some of the older (well, 2005) essays on RAW formatting, encryption, and the quest towards unlocking RAW files for ease of use going forward, and in a way it's depressing to see how little progress towards an open or universal format has been made.

The way I see it, there's really a very simple breakdown in the discussion (and yes, there are those who think that fighting for unencrypted or standard formats is a waste of time):  either one feels that there will always be at least one small utility to decrypt any given file, or one believes that certain filetypes will become hopelessly lost.

On the surface, of course, the issue seems silly to begin with - camera manufacturers don't have any obvious reasons besides greed to protect their file formats. However, I ran across a comment in Engadget that suggests a valid-sounding reason, although admittedly I don't know enough about electronics to say whether or not this is nonsense:

Actually, the reason that you see a lot of camera manufacturers keeping access to the RAW data encrypted has to do with hardware and not software. RAW data off of a CMOS chip tells you a lot about how the chip works, and if you've made some novel discoveries regarding imaging and sensors you might want to protect that. You might also want to sell your product and not wait for a patent. So hence encryption; although you might argue that this will have little or no effect on people trying to reverse engineer your CMOS, every little bit helps.

Which, although it doesn't make me happy as a consumer, at least makes sense from a technology business standpoint.

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about the increasing diversity and difficulty in tracking and converting RAW formats. I'm fairly confident that there are conversion apps out there for every kind of RAW file, but these 3rd-party tools are not often easy to find, install, or use.

So the real solution, it seems to me, is not necessarily to create a single file format (since that would encroach on the camera-maker's ability to code and protect their digital R&D - although anyone who is willing to adopt a standard format should probably do so), but to make sure that the major RAW converter applications keep a live (and legal) working database of RAW file encryptions.

If a RAW standard is not going to happen, which somehow seems increasingly unlikely to me, then it becomes important to allow single, major applications to unencrypt and convert as many RAW formats as possible. Otherwise, some formats could and probably will get lost.

Comments

[Barry Pearson]

The argument "if you've made some novel discoveries regarding imaging and sensors you might want to protect that" makes little sense!

If you want to know details about sensors, go to the camera manufacturer's website and download their material. If they have made novel discoveries, they will be making a fuss about it!

Foveon and Fujifilm published lots of stuff about their novel sensors, because it was their competitive advantage.

Cameras with novel sensors won't sell in large quantities unless photographers can use the tools (such as raw converters) they want to use with those cameras. So those tools need to know sufficiently about the raw files to do their work, else the cameras will not not be be very successful in the marketplace.

DNG is supported in some way by about 100 products from about 50 companies. That sounds like progress. See:
http://www.barry.pearson.name/articles/dng/

[Jason]

I think the point isn't to hide the fact that they have good technology - like you said, advertising advances like that is good for sales.

Rather, it's an issue of protecting technological advances that haven't yet been patented from other camera companies. If you develop something that makes your camera better, and it can be reverse-engineered from unencrypted RAW data, and you don't have a patent, then you don't want other companies to be able to steal your hard earned technology.

That's the angle I saw it at.