Polavision: the Product That Killed Polaroid

Ha, interesting video, thanks!

We had them in the camera store where I worked in my native Sweden.
Didn’t sell a single one 😮.

It's funny, I started this video thinking "hah Polaroid and their goofy crap machine" but the more I watched the more I realized the technology behind this thing transcends genius on multiple levels, the engineering and science behind everything is very clever, and clearly had smart people working on every part. It made me realized that Polaroid was once worth it's billions of dollars but eventually got filled with stupid marketing executives who prioritized fads and gimmicks, dumping massive amounts of money into complex low-return ideas for the sake of seeming "cool" or creating a closed-loop market that they control entirely.
This inspires hope in me that one day google and microsoft might just collapse into themselves like Polaroid.

"Build it and they will come."
Never was a more wrong-headed piece of advice uttered by anyone, even Edwin Land.

@14.46 Just needs a drop of oil, mate. She'll be fine.

I'm here for a Canadian saying "out".

I mean, I'm going to say the same thing about this that I say about RCA CED. If this had come out somehow 5-10 years earlier than it did, it could have been a great, if temporary success. Coming out when it did though, BEST case scenerio, if it had worked out just as Polaroid had hoped? Maybe 10+ years before VHS cams would have killed their market share.

Wow. Just 6 minutes into the video and I'm already convinced that I would never buy one of these things.
Whoever was in charge of this product clearly stacked the board with yes men. Because obviously nobody dared raise any negative questions about this thing. If they had it never would have been made

Unbelievably complex!

This is what happens when you try to bring technology to the market when it isn't ready yet. Electronic film technology, be magnetic tapes or CCD sensors are a god-sent.

The viewer is obviously powered by Briggs&Stratton....

my father had a Polaroid Land photo camera in the 60s, Boy did that thing suck , horrible photos

Way to go Polaroid and Land

I was a kid fascinated by new technology and by Polaroid cameras in 1977 (I think I got a One-Step camera around then or not long after), and this... basically wasn't on my radar at all. I probably had heard of it but hadn't heard enough for it to be memorable.

The One-Step (basically, the budget-priced version of the SX-70 instant camera) was a really, really popular camera that emerged around the same time, and it probably would have been a shock to most people in the late 70s to hear that Polaroid was actually in trouble. Their TV ads with James Garner and Mariette Hartley bantering charmingly about their products were a cultural institution.

great episode , thank you , just found you

Does this film have the same holes as any 8 mm system? Or do you really have to go through some lengths to play the film in these cartridges somewhere else?

Notwithstanding its subsequent failure, it was very ingenious really.

.....& I thought Super 8 film had its limitations, some of which were short duration and projector-noise!

Very cool story :) thank you :)

Polaroid and Polarvision? Brilliant chemistry but really bad products.

Discount Technology Connections getting better. Love your stuff.

Excellent!

Now, you decried the decoupling of the viewer focus control from the taking lens focusing. In this you are incorrect.

A viewer needs an independent focus control in order to accommodate the operator's vision, which can range between strongly myopic to presbyopic. Top end SLR cameras had a dedicated viewfinder focus control for this reason.

One cannot gauge proper camera focus through the viewfinder without first ensuring that the image presented through the viewfinder is first in proper focus within the context of that part of the optical train.

This is not unlike the diopter control for one eyepiece of a binocular, a necessary accommodation for differences of focus between the observer's eyes.

it didn't "kill Polaroid" at all. there was well over 2 decades between its launch and Polaroid's demise.

I heard about this, but never knew it went to market.

I was on a take your kid to work day trip with my dad at the Chicago merchandise mart, and stopped at a camera store there, where Polavision had just come out, and so we looked at it, while a salesman tried to get us interested in it. In '77 I was in junior high school TV class, and Betacam was pretty new but making a splash. I was full of questions, and the salesman got more and more depressed-looking with each of my questions. Dad watched me cross-examine the guy with paternal pride.

"How many minutes in a cassette?"
"Um, Two,,,,"
"The videotape machines at school can record for an hour, with sound. Does this record sound?"
"Um, no."
Can I pause, rewind, or fast-forward the film?"
"Um, no."
"Can I take the film out and use it in my super-8 projector?"
"Um, if you broke the cartridge open, I guess? maybe?"
"So, I can't edit what I've shot?" (I was already into tape splicing my super-8 movies)
"Um, no."
"Can I see it play something?"
"Here's the demo..."
"The screen is not very bright on this player..."
"You would dim the lights for a better view..."
"The film cassettes are shorter than super-eight, but more expensive?"
"Yeah, but, you don't have to wait to get it developed."
"That thing is loud... this picture is awful! ... how much are you asking for this?"
(Answers)
"I don't think you're going to sell many of these"

They tried to market it to schools and corporations for training use, but it was just a complete dog of a product and i wasn't surprised to find them gone from our local camera stores by the year's end, as video came on strong. Later on, you could buy Beta and VHS video tape in a Polaroid-branded box. Every time I saw that, I thought about Polavision, and how short-sighted the company was. They must have known about video tape, heck, they were using it in their satellite spy cameras for the defense department at the time, but it wasn't film, adn they could only see their company in terms of film. Even when early digital still cameras started appearing, they and Kodak were late to the game.

Maybe they thought people would use it for home made porn like Bob Crane, without the embarrassment of sending it out for developing... but even black and white EIAJ video tape was better than that stuff... With a two minute run time, every coupling had to be "quickie", lol.

Another historical example of "too clever by half"

My TV is a Polaroid

Fantastic episode. Beautiful work

My dad worked for Polaroid at the time and he wrote a lot of their documentation including some of the documentation for polavision. When I was a little kid he brought one home and took some home movies but then told us we couldn't tell our friends about it. Those might be the only movies from my childhood and I have no way to watch them

I've read and heard several reviewers mention the réseau of Polavision and Polachrome images. However, in all the reproductions of the images I've seen there is no réseau visible. The colour dot structure is random in a similar way to the Lumiere Autochrome.

It solved a pressing problem of the times: how to make instant porn on the Moon.

Pro photographers no longer needing to use Polaroids to check exposure and lighting killed Polaroid.

Wait, this isn't Technology Connections

never heard of this

I'll take what on earth were they thinking for 100, Alex.

Gilles, The History Guy, Reviewbrah and Mike Brady from Ocean Liner Design, all obviously share the same tailor.

I don't believe it killed Polaroid. Digital killed Polaroid and stupid corporate takeovers.

I love silly gizmos, doodats, thingamjigs and gadgets. 😳

Must be one of the most disastrously timed product releases ever. Released just as home video tape arrived. There was a Philips video tape system before Betamax that also died when Betamax and VHS arrived. I knew someone who had one but I think it only recorded for 30 mins per tape. He was very crest fallen when his new device was superseded almost immediately and they were very expensive. Excellent video as always.

Love how he's just sitting there staring in disappointment as the projector makes a lot of loud noises lol.

Wow, I completely missed the Polochrome thing

Yep. My parents bought me one of these for Christmas one year: Montgomery Ward was practically giving them away. They bought the main kit plus a few extra film cartridges. I used the four or so cartridges in the first day or two i had and I still have them (and they and the projector still work!) The quality is, as you say, not great and it has not improved over time. Its main issue is just bad timing. If it had been released 5 or 6 years earlier it might have had a chance.

Way ahead of his time.

Me: Mom can we have technology connections?
Mom: We have technology connections at home
Technology Connections at home:

I bought this Polavision product in 1981... it's been sitting in my basement for over 40 years. I would like to digitalize the film since many of my family members are gone... is there any place I can send these cassette tapes to salvage what hasn't disintegrated? Everything is in the original boxes but I can't seem to make the projector work... I will look at replacing the bulb but it doesn't even turn on... your information was very helpful. Can you still buy the cassettes somewhere? Or do I just toss everything? Is there anywhere I can take the equipment and have it serviced so I can play the cassettes?

Sounds a lot like Tim Cook's Apple Vision Pro development.