[HN Gopher] Canon CR3 Fileformat
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       Canon CR3 Fileformat
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2021-01-09 19:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | auxym wrote:
       | Uggh. At the moment, many open source photography software
       | projects are lacking support for CR3 due to an ambiguous patent
       | situation. It seems that CR3 may include technologies covered by
       | some patents, and Canon has refused to comment on whether or not
       | they intend to pursue legal action against open source reader
       | implementations. The response of the developers has been,
       | undertstandably, to forego implementation in order to avoid
       | getting sued.
       | 
       | https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/2170
        
         | smnrchrds wrote:
         | What's the incentive for Canon not to comment on this? Are they
         | charging license fees for use of CR3? Considering the fact that
         | their product is hardware, not software, I do not understand
         | what they stand to gain by keeping the patent situation
         | ambiguous.
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | Is it a cultural thing due to them being Japanese? The way
           | nintendo treat their customers seems to be usually waved off
           | as a Japanese thing
        
             | meibo wrote:
             | IP is very highly valued and (usually) well-respected over
             | there, so I can imagine that this is part of the reason.
        
             | ekianjo wrote:
             | > Is it a cultural thing due to them being Japanese?
             | 
             | Definitely a factor. By default, Japanese companies tend to
             | avoid or be reluctant to disclosing/sharing anything.
        
       | gotem wrote:
       | Wonder if one day we will be able to store files using 0 storage.
       | Complete compression.
        
         | jsheard wrote:
         | The LenPEG algorithm can compress images down to 0 bytes in the
         | best case
         | 
         | https://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/lenpeg.html
        
           | gotem wrote:
           | I thought you were being sereis but it only works for 1 image
           | at 0z
        
           | BlueTemplar wrote:
           | I see that the best case is actually a negative, unbounded
           | number of bytes?
        
       | buildbot wrote:
       | Small world! One of the contributors to this project created the
       | only open source firmware for a digital back, as far as I know:
       | https://github.com/Alexey-Danilchenko
        
       | herf wrote:
       | Recent notes are all about HEIF (~= iOS HEIC). It seems alarming
       | to me that so many devices (Canon and iPhone at least) are
       | putting out patent-encumbered HEIF/HEIC files _while_ the
       | available decoders are so incredibly slow.
       | 
       | Last I looked, libHEIF is >50x slower than the built-in iOS
       | decoders, which makes the format hundreds of times slower to
       | decode than JPEG. With JPEG, the differences between free
       | decoders and the "best" ones has been 2-3x in speed, but 50x
       | slower is a huge cost that makes these formats unworkable for a
       | whole lot of things, like most webservers.
       | 
       | Does anyone know if things are getting better here?
       | 
       | As an example, here are some 2019 benchmarks of Apple's HEIC
       | decoder vs. libHEIF:
       | 
       | https://github.com/joedrago/avif/issues/11
        
         | zadokshi wrote:
         | > "... makes these formats unworkable for a whole lot of
         | things, like most webservers"
         | 
         | Webservers don't encode/decode images, they simply need to send
         | them. (But yes, overall, I agree)
        
           | hamburglar wrote:
           | Next you're going to tell us webservers don't send email, or
           | perform searches, or move money around in bank accounts.
        
           | mehrdadn wrote:
           | > Webservers don't encode/decode images
           | 
           | Thumbnail generation?
        
           | threatripper wrote:
           | Except if they need to process them e.g. to create a
           | thumbnail or a preview.
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-09 23:00 UTC)