Originally posted by WheresWaldo The problem with Jeff's source, is that is entirely based on old outdated information. Once submitted and approved by ISO, Adobe gives up the rights to arbitrarily change the format.
That's my assumption too. Certainly that's the case with every other ISO standard - I'm not aware of any ISO standards that allow one company to arbitrarily change things (and I've been involved in several standardization efforts in the past). But I haven't totally followed this particular process, so perhaps there is some more recent insider info Jeff is aware of.
Quote: The problem with Jeff's source, is that is entirely based on old outdated information. Once submitted and approved by ISO, Adobe gives up the rights to arbitrarily change the format. Every revision to the format must be approved by ISO, even minor ones! Some of the technical aspects may still apply such as missing manufacturers specific metadata, but those things usually get addressed by ISO in their approval process and subsequent RFCs.
Besides, the source he is using also had his own agenda that he was promoting. To create another "standard" RAW format apart from what had already been done by others. Hardly an unbiased opinion.
Right. That site is *hopelessly* behind the times. In fact, as far as I can tell, OpenRAW is dead. The last update to the site was *over two years ago* - well before the ISO standardization of DNG began. So if one's only source of info on DNG comes from there, it is essentially worthless. My guess is these folks lost interest and threw in the towel when Adobe submitted DNG for ISO standardization and just never bothered to post an update.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, that the ISO standardization fails, and Adobe does retain control of DNG. In that case, yes, of course, there would be some risk. But there is another risk worth mentioning mentioning, much as we don't like to consider it: the possibility that Pentax goes out of business, leaving PEF an orphaned format. If I were in the worrying-about-what-bad-things-could-possibly-happen-in-the-future business, this would probably concern me more than anything Adobe might do.
As I have said before when the subject comes up, my crystal ball sucks. I have absolutely no idea which format is more likely to be viable in the future. But neither does anyone else. It's just guesswork. My guess is that both formats will continue to be viable for as long I need them to be. I can't prove that, but nor can anyone prove to me that their favorite format is more likely to survive.
So the bottom line as I see it is this: there is absolutely no way to know what the future holds, and nothing I've seen thus far seems even remotely convincing one way or the other. So making a format decision based on what amounts to, essentially, non-information, strikes me as pointless.
As far as I am concerned, the choice between DNG and PEF should not come down to concerns about the future. It should be based on the more concrete factors. The fact that DNG is not compressed in camera but PEF is - that is something that can and should influence which you shoot. The fact that PEF can be converted to DNG after the fact and yield even better compression at the expense of some computer processing time - that is also worth considering. The fact that you can store IPTC and other metadata, processing parameters, and even an adjusted preview directly within the DNG file (no sidecar files required) - that is also worth considering. But the fact that this makes DNG slower to work with than PEF, because updates can require re-writing the file - that's also worth considering. These are all legitimate objective facts that can be used in deciding which fits your workflow better, and in my mind, they *far* outweigh any guessing about what might happen 20 years from now.
FWIW, I shoot PEF. I like my files compressed in camera, I don't feel the need to spend time concerting them after fact, and the RAW processing software I use won't store an adjusted preview in the DNG file, so what could otherwise be the single biggest advantage of DNG (and it's a *big* advantage, to be sure - no more complaining that other applications can't see your changes) - is moot for me. I'd consider converting it anyhow - and I used to, when shooting with the DS, since that was the only way to get compression. But the fact that working with DNG is noticeably slower meant that once I got a camera that compressed PEF, I stopped caring about DNG. Sidecar files are just not a big deal to me - they are basically handled completely automatically and transparently in my workflow.