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Topic: Eumig, Austria or Italy?
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Maurice Leakey
Film God
Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted July 23, 2013 12:41 PM
Polavision, an instant movie stock, was revealed on 26 April 1977. The cassette held Polavision Phototape Type 608 which was silent, there was no provision for sound.
After being exposed in the Polavision camera a cartridge with 40ft (12 m) of movie film identical to the Super 8 format was inserted into a player. Inside, the film was automatically processed within 90 seconds, during rewind. The necessary chemicals were contained in small tanks inside the cartridge.
The system was initially meant to be made by Bell & Howell but then actually made by Eumig of Austria.
The "projector" was like a 12" television set and it all arrived in the shops in 1978.
But the equipment sat on dealers' shelves. In early 1979 only 1000 units had been sold in Germany. It could not meet its potential market, the family home movie-maker. It quickly disappeared from view, the maker's, Eumig, had counted on at least 150,000 sets annually.
All in all, Polavision turned out to be an expensive party game and ruined Eumig.
Thanks to Jurgen Lossau.
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Maurice
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 23, 2013 02:44 PM
One of my friends where I worked in 1979, actually purchased a Polavision system and demonstrated it in work one day. The film was an additive color system, similar to the early Dufaycolor system, and it resulted in a very dense color image requiring extremely bright projection - thus the reason for the small TV screen. But, the 12 inch wide picture viewer quality was really a joke, compared with the superb quality that people were getting with Kodachrome 2 projected on a big screen. I'm sure Kodak lost no sleep at all on this one.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 23, 2013 03:04 PM
Steve, it sounds like Dr. Land wanted to prove that instant movies could be done, and ignored the marketing forecasts. What is suprising is that Eumig bought into this system, after all Eumig more than anyone had their pulse on the home movie market.
I remember the first video systems very well. A camera the size of an Encylopedia, connected to a video tape recorder on a separate rolling carrier! When the Sony 8mm cassette camera came out, it was truly revolutionary.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 23, 2013 07:01 PM
Your right Adrian, Polavision offered absolutely nothing for the serious (or not so serious) moviemaker. In fact it came with a whole set of big negatives- very poor picture quality being the most serious, no editing, no projection etc. Absolutely no match for Kodachrome which everyone was using. It is truly astonishing that the whole exercise was ever allowed to get into full scale production without significant test marketing. Companies are only allowed to make this kind of major blunder once, and Polaroid and Eumig never recovered.
Looking at the AD above, a cartridge of Polavision was $7.50.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Robert Crewdson
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1031
From: UK
Registered: Jun 2013
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posted July 24, 2013 07:12 AM
Adrian, I think in those days the average time for developing Kodachrome was 7-10 days, depending on the time of year. The staff at Hemel Hempstead used to project each film, and there were complaints from some workers that when they went on holiday, they had seen it all before, via someone else's film.
Lee, maybe that was where I got mixed up with Italy.
slightly off subject now, but my prefered film was Perutz; in the later years I more often used Agfa Moviechrome, because A/ both 40 and 160 ASA were process paid, and B/ they were identical when spliced together; I spent a lot of time filming interiors of cathedrals.
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