Here are the press releases, edited for brevity:

“TOKYO (March 7, 2024) — Nikon Corporation (Nikon) hereby announces its entry into an agreement to acquire 100% of the outstanding membership interests of RED.com, LLC (RED) whereby RED will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nikon, pursuant to a Membership Interest Purchase Agreement with Mr. James Jannard, its founder, and Mr. Jarred Land, its current President, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions thereunder.”

“HOLLYWOOD (March 6, 2024) – RED Digital Cinema (RED.com, LLC) announced that it will be acquired by Nikon Corporation (Nikon). The agreement with Nikon, reached with RED’s Founder Jim Jannard and President Jarred Land, signifies a new strategic partnership that brings together Nikon’s history and expertise in product development, image processing, optical technology and user interface, with RED’s innovative digital cinema cameras and technologies.”

Flashback to NAB in April 2006. FDTimes wrote, “Customers were holding a $1000 casting with serial number representing a refundable reservation for a RED One Camera. Usually we’re used to seeing prototypes modeled out a block of wood, painted black. This definitely departs from normal camera making, but RED’s Jim Jannard is the founder of Oakley Sunglasses and also an accomplished cinematographer. RED set out to build a motion picture camera using the digital SLR as its paradigm. Now the digital SLR is in parallel evolution. The original RED idea was to make a cine camera like a still camera that shoots at 24 fps. At a time when RAW uncompressed 2K data (D20, Dalsa, Genesis) ate up to 400 MB a second, or 1.5 Terabytes an hour, Redcode RAW 4K used up a mere 27 MB a second, or 97 Gigabytes an hour. You can archive 5 hours of that onto a LaCie 500 GB Firewire Drive for about $190. What RED introduced was compression, logic and look.”

RED’s press release today continues: “For over 17 years, RED has been at the forefront of digital cinema, from the original RED ONE 4K to the current 8K V-RAPTOR X, all powered by RED’s proprietary REDCODE RAW compression. RED cameras have been used on major motion pictures and RED is celebrated for its commitment to innovation and image quality at the highest levels of filmmaking, documentaries, commercials and video production. This acquisition marks a significant milestone for Nikon. Together, Nikon and RED are poised to redefine the professional digital cinema camera market, promising an exciting future of product development that will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in film and video production. Stay tuned for more updates as Nikon and RED embark on this exciting journey to shape the future of cinema technology.”

Nikon’s press release continues, “This agreement was reached as a result of the mutual desires of Nikon and RED to meet the customers’ needs, merging the strengths of both companies. Nikon’s expertise in product development, reliability, and know-how in image processing, as well as optical technology and user interface along with RED’s knowledge in cinema cameras, including unique image compression technology and color science, will enable the development of distinctive products in the professional digital cinema camera market. Nikon will leverage this acquisition to expand the fast-growing professional digital cinema camera market, building on both companies’ business foundations and networks, promising an exciting future of product development that will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in film and video production.”