On Sat, Feb 25, 2006 at 04:08:21PM -0700, Joseph Tainter wrote: > "All the current Pentax cameras use the same sensor, which > produces an array of 12-bit values. But the file storage on a > memory card uses a byte-organised architecture. This means that > the 12-bit values from the sensor have to be stored in 8-bit > bytes on the card. > > "The *ist-D took the simple approach of padding each 12-bit > value with 4 extra zero bits, and storing the resulting 16-bit > value in two 8-bit bytes." > > Was this done in silicon? Is that why there was no firmware > upgrade to make the D files the size of the DS files?
I don't know, but I doubt it - I'd expect all that data shuffling to be done purely in software/firmware. The problem with a firmware upgrade would be that all the software that worked with RAW files from the D (including Pentax Photo Browser & Pentax Photo Laboratory) would need to be upgraded to work with the new files. That could be a product support nightmare, explaining to users just why they could no longer use the RAW files from their camera. Sure, Pentax could ship new versions of _their_ software with the firmware upgrade. But I'm sure enough people would neglect to read the instructions, or forget they had the software installed on more than one system, or blame Pentax for problems with third-party software, etc. that it just wasn't worth the trouble.
