Polavision: the Product That Killed Polaroid

Here in the UK it was not a very popular format - having said that, as I transfer cine film to digital, a client brought me in 19 cassettes of this to transfer a while back. It is based around super 8mm film but runs at 17 fps rather than 18 fps for actual super 8mm. The one issue that I guess was never thought about at the time of production is how the chemical residue would hold up in the years to come. The cassettes that I had to copy had all suffered from the chemical base drying out and cracking. I was able to mitigate this issue with a combination of restoration software and DaVinci Resolve Studio to actually give them some passable material to view - although as you stated in the video, the sensitivity being only 40ASA produced very dark original images. Of course transferring this film results in the destruction of the cassette but it is quite impressive inside with the prism etc.

Nice nod to The Ring in the opening.

It wasn't "DuFrayColor" but Dufaycolor, and was British, not French — though named in honour of French inventor Louis Dufay, on whose Dioptichrome glass plate process it was based. Dufaycolor was rather more successful than Polavision, being used for colour slide and ciné film from its introduction in 1932 until the late 50s. 😊

Correction. That was Jeff Goldblum. A young Jeff, but Jeff nonetheless. I know that hepcat anywhere, anytime.

He keeps saying "impressive for the time"
No, it"s just impressive. How did anyone figure this out?

I camt even tell what it was filming.

Wow, lucky break in that you found a working cartridge with cinematography by David Lynch!

Comparing it to the emerging magnetic technology, it was not not enough. I think I heard Kodak could have been a pioneer in digital and they were afraid to go into that as they were quite comfortable in analog technologies.

I was JUST wondering if this was made. Instant Film for Video! The timing is impeccable!

Off to go check if it has a Wikipedia page + make internal links to it if so and i missed it!

(all together now)...video killed the polaroid star...etc

I imagine when the Betamax player was launched and was available alongside this system, it must've been a wet rag in the face of the company. They seem like technologies from to different eras when compared. Which they were I guess, the past and the future.

A modern take at this would be neat to see!

I don’t remember the polivizion but I do remember the slide film .

Problem of polavision was that wasn’t instant:instant film was immediately developed on the go outside and at home of friends or in a restaurant in the party’s
Bulky polavision player was also the developer machines and works only whit electric current not whit battery
Polaroid cameras make instant prints immediately ready to share whit others:polavision make a movie not ready to be viewed from others:not existed lcd viewfinder to view movie like vhs camcorder;and polavision can t be projected and needed to hold bulky heavy proprietary monitor/developping machine and this was an other cost to sustain
In a party a standard super 8 or polavision instant super 8 not maked the difference:people that use polavision needed to return to home to develop and view the movie and this ruin “The magic”

Polaroid failed for innovating and Kodak failed for not innovating. Chemistry based photography is just too different from digital imaging.
It would be like Roll-A-Dex trying to adapt to compete with a BlackBerry

A department store in town was hawking this system in late 1977. The salesman was shooting film of everyone who was gathering around. The lighting store was adequate but not optimum, so he was using the Twilight ray gun on an extension cord. I had been a single 8 then a super 8 filmmaker for a number of years, so I was quite interested in the system. He popped the cart in the player, 90 seconds later we were treated to the darkest, muddiest, grainiest, blurrierst home movie I had ever seen. Of course, some of the crowd was amazed and astounded. I merely looked at the salesman and said "This thing is a joke! Really, is this the best it can do??"

Reminds me of some of the problems with the RCA Videodisc system. Made sense when at the time the idea was first conceived, ended up taking way longer to develop, obsolete when released.

Awesome Gills! I have given up trying to buy each item you talk about. My wife and I like to eat. Peace and more videos please!

11/10

Great video! Thanks!

Even for today, that looks like a high quality and expensive peice of kit.

Memories. I worked for Polaroid at Disneyland in 1980 when Polavision was introduced. We used to rent them. I went around the park and took movies.

I'm very glad that Lady Gaga invested the Polaroid Corporation pretty sure doing it for historical reasons Polaroid corporation started in 1937 when Edwin land realized there's just no way we're going to get into the Second World War he concentrated all his efforts towards making sure that we would be victorious also I'm not big into conspiracy theories although Polaroid was paid money from the car companies to keep Secret the polarized lenses they were going to put on cars basically if you have two polarized lenses you're not going to see the oncoming headlights because it works like a polarizing lens anyway I always thought of them as being a camera company no they were a chemical company but of course that's what you need to develop film film the instant camera came about because he had control of the company for 10 years after that so we had to develop something quick and he developed instant photography which of course made them insanely successful although Edwin land also was a high-level advisor to Eisenhower they were developing satellites actually infringing on Polaroid patents for certain spy satellite applications it didn't seem to bother him apparently anyway Amazing Life amazing immigrant to our country

Can someone with better eyes than me describe what's going on in the Polavision footage? Brilliant demonstration of its flaws, though, and a fantastic video, well done.

Might have been a flop but I can see it being a cult classic among tech enthusiasts.

Kind of how there are filters to make cell phone camera images look like 89s film images. Looks so cool!!!

Edwin Land was a very interesting guy. Polaroid to me always seemed like they were on the edge of being a "real" photographic company, but never quite getting over the line from gimmick to mainstream. The instant cameras from the 70s were cool and invoke lots of nice memories for those of us who remember them, but if you wanted "good" photographs they were not a substitute for a decent 35 mm camera and a trip to a 1-hour photo lab. Land wanted their equipment to be simple and easy to use, but that came at the expense of control over the process, and the cameras themselves always seemed kind of cheap, almost but not quite toy-like. I didn't get into film photography until 2005 or so, so I never heard of Polaroid's instant sheet film, which was arguably their best and most useful product for serious photographers.

The current company Polaroid Originals sells revived instant film and cameras again, and Fujifilm has been selling their Instax line of products for quite a few years now, all based on the current "lo fi" culture aesthetic which appeals to nostalgia of dreamy 1970s-looking photography. These things are cool, I have one, and I am guessing the current market is smaller but more stable, much like the chemical photo world in general, which is now more of a niche art market than the pro market, which is fully as high tech and digital as possible.

Might have been a flop but I can see it being a cult classic among tech enthusiasts.

Kind of how there are filters to make cell phone camera images look like 89s film images. Looks so cool!!!

Looks kinda like those POV homemade horror movies lol

Phillips Laserdisc system also comes to mind, also Betamax, and VHS. Betamax better, VHS cheaper.

I remember reading an article in Time magazine about the unveiling of the Polaroid instant movie camera and a few days later walking past the TV department in Sears. They had a video camera on a tripod that let me watch myself on the biggest television they had.

As a young teen I remember seeing this at Sears while waiting for my Mother to finish a weekly meeting she attended there. Also on display was some of the very early video cameras for consumers too. Both were expensive to my mind and having dabbled in 8mm movies from a yard sale camera I never really got into motion photography. I would get involved with still photography instead and still have that interest today. And yes, we had Polaroid cameras and I still have photos my Father took in 1969 on his camera that had the peel away stuff. (I can remember because I was asleep and gotten woken up to take a photo with my brothers and mom and then one with my brother and dad, and yes I have both photos and do look sleepy)

Porn. It was for home porn.

Nobody wants the pervs at the Fotomat getting a look at your girl/boy friend's goods when you drop the film off for developing.

The equipment was developed by Bell & Howell for Polaroid. It was my first job since graduating tech school and I worked on the viewer. It was fully functioning in ‘72 when I started. Development continued and B&H became impatient for full manufacturing to start and eventually it was moved to Eumig. The viewer with screen was required as the film was too dense for conventional projection.

My dad bought one of these that I used to play with as a kid in the’70s. I thought it was pretty cool at the time.

Camera Stealth is -99999

I feel like calling this the 'start of Polaroid's failure' is ignoring the absolutely massive use of peel-apart film in the professional and scientific spaces... That market drying up once digital imaging technology got good enough was really what hurt them.

reso ?

Polavision didn't kill Polaroid, The white collar private equity criminals of The Impossible Project did.... Florian Kaps, André Bosman, Marwan Saba, Oskar Smołokowski, Creed O'Hanlon, Wiaczesław Smołokowski (plus another dozen suit wearing crooks along the way) all raped the Polaroid (Impossible BV) corpse while living the high life in their offices in Vienna, Berlin, New York, and Tokyo.

I was wondering if Polaroid where oblivious to the research and technical development by the Japanese regarding domestic video tape. It seems inconceivable that someone in the company was not aware of video tape and if the info were sent up the chain of command calling into question the validity of Polavision. I recall in the second half of the seventies using a Sony portable real to real recorder/player to which one attached a handheld video camera, albeit black and white. Did Polaroid think of all the decision making, one “positive” being able to compete with the initial cost of video equipment because Polavision was lower in cost for the consumer? Excellent video on an invention that passed me by as I was occupied in the analogue audio and video field plus film photography. OFC now I am all-digital, except I do sometimes roll out the second last SLR 35mm film camera released by Nikon the F100 and shoot old school.

You misunderstand the purpose of the viewfinder focus. When looking through the viewfinder, it's best not to wear glasses. Therefore, you adjust the viewfinder focus so you can see clearly what will be exposed to the film/sensor. All more or less professional cameras have this. It makes adjusting the focus for the film/sensor SO MUCH easier, when you can see what you're doing.

Even digital viewfinders have this, so you can see the tiny screen clearly.

this thing gives me major CED vibes

I remember having one of these and I thought it was pretty neat…I can’t remember what ever happened to it

I never understood why Polaroid was hell bent on producing cheap plastic hardware with the cheapest lenses available. I worked in an agency that made heavy use of instant film cameras for documentation, even the SX-70 fell apart in no time. If it wasn't the plastic parts that broke, it was the residue from the chemicals that destroyed the camera.

"Boss, boss! Have ya heard about this newfangled thing called videotape?"
"We can beat it!"