Thanks, that is a great post, which seems even closer to the truth. From that we learn that:
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The CR3 format has largely been reverse engineered already.
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Other open source programs already support the R5. The actual image data from the CR3 is available to RT.
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The part that RT seems not to have already from libraw is already supported by exiftool or in ART.
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So this just seems like the RT dev team has not chosen to put this in - while TL, DT, ART, exiftool have already done it.
So it is not lack of reverse engineering - the essential part has already been done!
It is not the case that the open source developer community can’t crack CR3 because they are cowering in fear of me. That is just made up nonsense.
Nor is there is any Canon patent, or indeed any other patent threat that is causing the delay.
The other open source teams have it figured out.
The post also mentions compression as not figured out yet. That is understandable - reverse engineering a compression algorithm is harder than a file format.
BUT, it’s not clear this needs to be done.
There is a compressed raw format that Canon introduced with the R series, and maybe even the R5. Personally, I don’t use it, nor do I think there is anybody who does at the moment, or ever will frankly.
Compressed RAW is lossy, so I think almost nobody who currently shoots RAW will want it.
If you are OK with lossy, then you already have JPEG.
So it is a weird middle ground. The only reason to use it would be that you don’t care about getting ultimate image quality, and currently shoot JPEG, but you want some RAW latitude with white balance and dynamic range beyond what a JPEG could get.
So my opinion is you don’t need to support Compressed RAW.