P3D Re: Polaroid Movie (OFF TOPIC)

[Eric Goldstein <egoldste@xxxxxx>]

Bob Wier wrote:

> Ah yes, - the "videotape is just a fad" guys :-)

You mean, it isn't?  8-) (See answer below)

You probably remember that just a bit after Polaroid Instant movies
(1976 I think) RCA introduced the first ENG equipment, a "portable"
camera (TK-76?) and 3/4" U-matic deck. My future employer, Group W
Broadcasting (I was working for Capital Cities Communications at the
time, the people who were to buy ABC), had the idea to use this
"instant" equipment to launch a new type of ccoperative syndicated show
for Prime Access (7-8 PM) and called it Evening/PM Magazine. In
conjunction with use in the news realm, the rest as they say is
history...

A couple of notes... The performance of that first equipment (which as I
recall cost somewhere in a region of $35,000/set then) was dramatically
below what a $600 Hi-8 camera will do today. Also, some twenty years and
hundreds of advances later, most of the world still suffers with video
systems which cannot begin to compare in performance to the news film
shot way back when with beat up old CP-16s and Bolexs. Digital/High
Definition (if it goes that way instead of multiple channel utilization)
will come closer to film in some ways but still not equal it.

Fine broadcasters the world over still shoot their prime time dramatic
product on film and post produce it in digital video on AVIDs for speed
and ecomony...

So now we come full circle to answer your question... we are still
shooting on film and the product never has to touch tape to be
broadcast, instead being handled entirely in the digital domain to air.

So I do think we can say yes, that tape is a fad that will likely fade
long before film does!

Sorry to digress...


Eric G.


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