Reference Glossary
Raw camera footage archive
A raw camera footage archive stores unprocessed sensor data — formats like ARRIRAW, RED R3D, or Blackmagic RAW — exactly as captured, preserving full dynamic range and color latitude for future regrading.
Why it matters in a DAM
Raw files carry information a delivered/graded master never will — the sensor's full dynamic range and color latitude before any creative look was baked in — so a DAM that discards raw originals after delivery permanently forecloses future re-grades, HDR remasters, or higher-quality recuts of that material. The tradeoff is real: raw formats are large and often proprietary, so a DAM archiving them has to plan for both the storage cost and the risk that a camera vendor's decode SDK gets deprecated before the archive is migrated forward.
A worked example
Common mistake
A common and costly mistake is archiving only the graded, delivered master and discarding or overwriting the camera-raw originals once a project wraps to save storage — which permanently forecloses any future re-grade, HDR remaster, or higher-quality recut, because the dynamic range and color latitude baked out of the raw file during grading cannot be recovered from the delivered version.
A raw camera footage archive keeps the unprocessed sensor data from a shoot — not a rendered, graded deliverable, but the closest thing to what the camera’s sensor actually captured. Formats like ARRIRAW, RED’s R3D, and Blackmagic RAW fall into this category: they retain the sensor’s natural color response and full exposure latitude as unprocessed data, using efficient logarithmic encoding rather than a baked-in creative look, so a colorist can still make substantially different grading decisions from the same raw file years after the shoot.
| Format | Vendor / origin |
|---|---|
| ARRIRAW (.ari) | ARRI |
| R3D | RED |
| Blackmagic RAW (.braw) | Blackmagic Design |
| X-OCN | Sony |
That flexibility is exactly what gets lost if only the delivered master is kept. A finished, graded export has already had its dynamic range compressed and its color decisions locked in; it can be re-encoded or upscaled, but it cannot be re-graded with the same latitude as the original sensor data, because the information outside the delivered look was discarded in the render. Productions that expect to revisit material — for an HDR remaster, a future recut, or reuse in a different project with a different visual treatment — need the raw originals kept, not just the deliverable.
The cost of keeping raw is real and has to be planned for deliberately in a DAM: raw files are significantly larger than production-codec masters, and several formats are tied to vendor-specific decode software that isn’t guaranteed to be supported indefinitely. A durable raw archive strategy usually means preserving the camera and shooting metadata alongside the file (camera model, lens, ISO, white balance, any on-set look applied for monitoring) so a future regrade has the same context the original colorist had, and periodically confirming that the decode path for each raw format is still viable rather than discovering an obsolete codec only when someone actually needs the footage back.
Frequently asked
What's the practical difference between raw camera footage and a ProRes or other production-codec master?
Raw formats preserve the sensor's data with minimal processing and full dynamic range/color latitude, allowing substantial re-grading later. A production codec like ProRes is typically already debayered and often has a look or color space baked in, which is efficient for editing but leaves less room to fundamentally change the grade afterward.
Why keep raw files if the delivered master already looks correct?
The delivered master reflects one specific grading decision made at one point in time. Keeping the raw preserves the option to re-grade for a different deliverable (HDR vs SDR, a different platform's color space) or to recut with material that didn't make the original edit, without having to reshoot.
What are the storage implications of archiving raw camera footage in a DAM?
Raw files run substantially larger than delivery-codec masters since they carry unprocessed or lightly compressed sensor data rather than a rendered, compressed deliverable — a DAM archiving raw at scale needs a storage and tiering plan (e.g. cold/cloud archive storage) built around that, not just standard active-project storage.
Can any video player or NLE open raw camera formats directly?
Not universally — many raw formats require the camera manufacturer's own codec, plugin, or SDK to decode (e.g. RED's REDCODE tools, ARRI's raw SDK), which means a DAM's preview/proxy generation step is often what makes raw footage actually viewable without specialized software installed.
What metadata should be preserved alongside raw camera files for future regrading?
Camera model and sensor, lens used, ISO/exposure index, white balance/color temperature, and any on-set LUT or look file applied for monitoring — this context lets a colorist years later understand the original creative intent instead of grading blind from the raw sensor data alone.
What's the risk of relying on a camera vendor's proprietary raw codec for long-term archiving?
If a vendor deprecates support for an older raw format or decode SDK, files in that format can become difficult to open with current software, which is why long-term raw archives typically need periodic migration or transcoding to a maintained format before that support actually lapses, not after.
Sources
- ARRIRAW is ARRI's format for uncompressed, unencrypted sensor data that fully retains the camera's natural color response and exposure latitude. checked 2026-08-07 — ARRI — ARRIRAW File Format
- ARRIRAW records an uncompressed image while reducing data volume by using logarithmic rather than linear allocation of code values across stops of light. checked 2026-08-07 — ARRI — ARRIRAW FAQ