REDCODE RAW in the Nikon ZR: RED Explains the Renaming of NEV Files to R3D
[14:21 Mon,27.October 2025 by Rudi Schmidts]
Nikon achieved a surprising success with the launch of the Nikon ZR. This was partly because virtually no one had expected REDCODE RAW to appear in a camera with a Nikon ASIC just 18 months after the equally surprising acquisition of RED.
REDCODE RAW (R3D) is RED's proprietary RAW video codec, shipped with every generation of RED cameras and essentially representing the company's "secret sauce."
For years prior, R3D comprised not only wavelet-compressed RAW video but also offered a standardized interpretation of sensor data, consistent metadata, and RED's Colour Science combined with specific RAW development parameters. In short: a complete image processing chain from sensor to screen, commonly referred to as the RED Color Workflow. This standardization from sensor to screen serves to ensure precise and cinematic results across the entire image processing chain.
REDCODE RAW was also the first widely adopted RAW codec for cinema workflows, predating ARRI, and was continuously evolved over the years with each RED camera generation. Each camera is thus specifically integrated into the workflow through a color and sensitivity characterization of its sensor, which is intended to enable consistent results with other RED cameras.
A RED-managed Software Development Kit (SDK) handles the entire management of debayering, decompression, and image processing. This SDK is integrated into all major production tools (e.g., from Adobe, Avid, or Blackmagic Design), thereby ensuring a correct RED workflow within the application, even for new cameras.
However, the integration of RED RAW into the Nikon ZR brought about a fundamental change. Instead of integrating the original RED RAW into the Nikon firmware, the already implemented Nikon N-RAW format was used as a basis and extended with the RED Color Pipeline.
Like other REDCODE RAW formats, R3D NE uses RED's current IPP2 pipeline, from decompression and debayering algorithms to advanced RAW image processing such as chroma noise reduction. Unlike previous cameras, however, R3D NE uses the existing RAW compression functions of Nikon's EXPEED ASIC, which in turn are based on Tico Raw and were first introduced with the Z9. This also explains what the NE in R3D NE stands for: Nikon EXPEED.
In the Nikon ZR itself, when recording in R3D NE, the sensor data of the Tico Decoder is converted into a Log3G10/RWG image. In contrast, for N-RAW recording into an NEV file, N-Log is used, among other things.
As a first step, RED introduced the capability to process N-RAW within its SDK for this purpose, starting in early 2025. Thus, the Nikon RAW format with its NEV files became part of the RED workflow. However, some tools like Resolve already offered native NEV support prior to this and subsequently had the option to import Nikon N-RAW files alternatively via the RED SDK. Other applications like Adobe Premiere then exclusively use the RED SDK to import NEV files.
Upon introducing the new R3D NE format, RED maintained binary compatibility with the NEV format within the camera, while simultaneously ensuring consistent interaction with other RED formats through a new file extension. This also ensured that editing software would utilize the RED SDK, triggered by the file extension. The R3D NE format therefore stores the camera's specific image information, in the RED style, within an NEV-Tico data stream. These include, among other things, the special sensor gain and the optimized colorimetry of the Nikon ZR.
Applications such as DaVinci Resolve can now be made to process NEV files via the RED SDK as if they were R3D files, simply by renaming the NEV files to R3D. Technically, these files remain N-RAW/N-Log and therefore do not fit into the RED workflow for R3D – primarily because they are not in the Log3G10/RWG color space. Therefore, it is important to understand that these renamed files are not identical to an R3D NE file recorded with the same camera – color, exposure, black and white points, and consequently the dynamic range will differ. However, this trick allows NEV files to be imported into editing programs that would otherwise not natively support Nikon's N-RAW....
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