THANKS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT ON THIS SERIES! Just a reminder that though we research these videos as thoroughly as we can, we will miss some details in some of the complex stories that are only available now through old videos and archived webpages. So please let us know if we miss anything and we will be sure to amend it here in the comments! ============================= Join our Discord Channel💬 ► discord.gg/3aeNPU7GHu Twitter ► twitter.com/frame_voyager Instagram ► instagram.com/framevoyager/ TikTok ► www.tiktok.com/@framevoyager Join our UA-cam channel 📺 ►ua-cam.com/channels/mXGDFnFh95WlZjhwmA5aeQ.htmljoin
I don't think a lot of people know how instrumental Lucas was to the digital world. Not only did they use the CIneAlta for AotC but Lucas also had formed a digital division Lucasfilm creating a team of people that created Digital Audio editing, Digital Video editing, Digital Compositing and early 3D Animation. That team was later sold of to Steve Jobs and became Pixar. Funnily enough the only thing Lucas didn't forsee was 3D animation as a useful tool that could be superior to practical or miniature vfx; having scrapped that tool and selling away Pixar. Despite this, Lucas and his ILM team are still at the center of many innovations that we take for granted in film making today.
@@_arturjutkowiak_film That's absolutely correct ...if you live in the late 90s. Modern VFX are practically indistinguishable from reality, except for specific cases, like 3D models of humans.
Wow F900... Remembered the days where its signal was sent By 3 cables RGB bnc and the cable was thick... 20m of the cable is hard work... Setting up the 1st gen Monitor was really heavy... Took 3 person to load it up a trolley... And it is huge... Camera is really2 power hungry i remembered using 20 14.4v anton bauer trimpacs for a full day shoot. One thing lovely is the camera is digibeta sized.... Memories....
I still think George should've shot the prequels on film. Not just because film looks better, but because there were still some technological aspects of the digital camera he used that he either overlooked, didn't foresee, or just didn't care about. Such as the highest resolution of that camera being 1080p, which may be great for short films on UA-cam but not exactly the resolution to show on the big screen, and, as stated by Niko from *_Corridor Crew,_* the camera's compression ratio was most likely at 4:1:1, meaning they couldn't capture all that color and luma data and as a result, all the blue screen shots looked so obvious.
I’ve enjoyed your series (even appeared in some of your archival clips) but I have to take issue with your wrap up of the F900 here. This camera was ridiculously successful for Sony. They sold tons of them, way more than they ever thought they would, and with slight revisions and updates continued selling the F900 (the last iteration was the F900R) for something like eight years. That’s an incredibly long run for a digital cinema camera; that’s even longer than most film camera model production runs. I wouldn’t say Sony “abandoned” the F900, I’d say they successfully milked it for everything they could for as long as possible.
Oh, for sure! I probably should have used some better phrases at the end of this video. That's why I did acknowledge that it did go on to film a whole lot the following 8 years afterward. But then was overtaken by other versions of new cameras. But they did milk the line for a while!
@@FrameVoyager If I may make a suggestion, maybe this series could do with a name change since a lot of really interesting cameras aren't really "abandoned" so much as naturally phased out as part of an upgrade process. Maybe "Forgotten Cameras"?
@@seangentry2943 Hey! It's a good suggestion it really is! The only issue I have with it is the name is not as marketable, as I did a lot of A/B testing on this content prior to making the series. For content to be seen sometimes I have to finesse the name and it's a bit more fun with the "ABANDONED" kind of mantra. I may start doing a better job maybe asking was this camera abandoned or was it just replaced? I feel like I kind of did that in this video more, but I can be a little clearer in future videos. Or maybe even keep the series name but change the titles a bit? So maybe I can answer it as a question for some that were more phased out. Some of it I have to play the UA-cam game and make it a bit clickbaity, like most UA-camrs do, but also still deliver content value when you click on the video. It's a hard line to kind of play and I like to add a bit of a dramatic spin to this content that often times can be a bit dry if you know what I mean!
This video really misses the mark. The main thing to understand about the HDW-F900 is that it's basically just a 1080p broadcast video ENG camera that's running at 24p, complete with the broadcast-standard 2/3" image format and HDCAM recording format. It traces its lineage to the HDW-700, the first 1080p broadcast camera, which obviously is part of a long line of DigiBeta and Betacam broadcast stuff going back to the 1980s that this video completely omitted from discussion (while bizarrely focusing on 1990s-era consumer handycams instead). There's no discussion about the fundamental problems of using 2/3" image sensors recording into HDCAM for digital cinema: you need extremely fast glass to get any sort of focus control, you have zero dynamic range, and it turns out that compressed and chroma-subsampled 1080p is pretty soft compared to a 35mm print. That's why Attack of the Clones looks like it was shot by Channel 7 Eyewitness News instead of a film crew - because it basically was.
Appreciate the comments! Planning on going back and doing a follow up video addressing areas I missed in these videos so I'll pin this for that video. You ok with this comment being used?
I understand the direction in your comments but a couple of corrections are in order. The Sony HDW-700 camera was 1035i lines (not 1080) and recorded in interlace (not progressive). The follow on camera HDW-700A was a 1080i (interlaced) camera but did not record in 1080 progressive (1080p) either. Sony invented Progressive Segmented Frames (psF) to bridge the gap between interlaced (two fields per frame) recording and true progressive recording for display. I've shot with all three and appreciate the build quality and reliability of Sony's HDCam cameras.
I think one detail that was missed was that Sony had been working on digital high-definition equipment a while before the HDW-F900, beyond just consumer handycams, starting in 1988 with Digital HDVS recorders, then in the early 90s with the Sony HDC-500 (which introduced CCDs into their pro HDTV camera line). Their early experience in broadcast HD helped in the development of HDCAM, which had heavy influence in early CineAlta hardware.
For sure! It's so hard to cover everything in these videos without stepping in other content I have lined up to talk about as well!. But that's a great point!
I was looking for this information online a while ago, got it all in text, and now you made it into a video! Fantastic job! Thank you, had lots of fun watching it!
Appreciate it! Yeah, no one has really been compiling all of this into one piece of content so thought I'd give it a go! I'm sure not everything is exactly perfect but the best I could put together from various sources.
Interesting...I really enjoyed the clip from Bleeker Stereo & TV...Tim Bleeker who was the son of the guy who started it, is a friend of mine from High School. I'll have to point him to this video! Thanx!
Oh that's really cool! Yeah, I found that floating around online and thought it would be fun to include some of those old sony commercials in the video!
To be fair only thing that I didn't like about movies being shot on the low-res is that when you want to upscale them years later, they are really hard to work with. When with analog media, you just "take photos" of it with high-res camera.
True! Seems like some of the other future cameras like the Genesis or the F35 had large 5.8k sensors but would output at 1920x1080 footage. So I'd imagine those might be a little easier to upscale later on? But yeah, can only imagine trying to upscale the convoluted mess of Attack of the Clones lol
Implying that Sony went from consumer handycams straight to the F900 is very off. They made ENG cameras for decades. I agree that the F900’s life on movie sets was short-lived, but it was actually pretty successful in the television world with the F900R until XDCAM line of the 700 and F800 cut into its market.
Very interesting but why talk about this camera and not talk about "Vidocq"? Although its considered as not a very good movie, it was shot entirely with the F900 (contrary to Lucas who shot only parts of SW2) and it was one year before!
The real problem with F900 was, that it recorded in HDCAM format that was 3:1:1. Meaning croma resolution was only 480x1080. This is why Lucas wanted HDCAM SR for Ep3, which was 4:4:4. Meaning 4x chroma samples, from 0.5 Mpx to 2 Mpx. The jump in bandwidth was from 112 Mbit/s to even 880 Mbit/s. A massive step up.
Yep! It's crazy how fast things were adapted after early uses of the digital camera. It feels like George Lucas had to use the F900 to convince Sony to get into it.
I did some AC work with it in tv drama and even one motion pic. In poor or small market areas you use what you can afford. Original cam had 6 bnc connections, one of them was hd-sdi. But it did not offer sd-downconversion or pull-down. Later models had downconversion at least and Sony also offered upgrades to it...
I got to use the F900 about 11\12 years ago. It was B-roll football footage for a Japanese TV station here in Italy: they wanted 1920x1080 at 60i and the rental house had their HDC-730s out, so the only thing available was the old 900. It felt weird to use what was once considered cutting edge cinema equipment for TV, but that's obsolescence for you.
@@FrameVoyager Indeed. The cool thing about the F900 was that, when everything was said and done, it was a 2\3'', tape-based camera - essentially, a camera from the Beta family. Hence, it was very comfortable to use for run&gun: like most cameras of its kind, it rested comfortably on your shoulder and didn't weight too much. Using it with a Canon HDTV B4 lenses like I did essentially felt like shooting with a Sony MSW-970. That was essentially a poor man's DigiBeta using Mpeg IMX tapes and it was one of the 2\3'' systems I worked with the most in those days.
You can't just drop that info about the dialogue being completely destroyed using these cameras and having to redo all of it in a tiny nugget like that.
I’ve always felt going digital for the prequels was a bad idea from a creative perspective considering the movies were meant to tie in with a film from 1977, but it’s clear George Lucas was more focused on being a technical innovator above everything else (plus he felt he could just go back and change the originals). I don’t think the prequels themselves have aged very well due the technical aspects, but it is nice to see that there was good to come out of them in the long run due to the way they helped to revolutionize the industry.
I really apreashiate your pacing on this I never felt like I had to put this to 2x speed. I feel a lot of creators could learn from you. Also, I always hated working with this camera but that was years later when people and sony would still want to use this camera instead of a red or HVX.
Appreciate it! For UA-cam you really gotta cut out the pauses and breathes, shortens videos like this by a couple of minutes! That's cool you got to use this camera though! Seems like a fascinating time to be in film!
These cameras were barely HD and barely 24p. I worked in post production on a few Robert Rodriguez movies around 2001/2002 that used F900s and they were severely chroma sub-sampled, you could see interlacing artefacts on really fast objects (like sparks) meaning they were not true progressive frames, and I think the native resolution of the sensor was 1440x1080. The chroma subsampling and the artificial edge sharpening was making our lives *really* difficult for chroma keying. I heard somewhere that Lucas saw some test footage from Rodriguez for Once Upon a Time in Mexico and that it pushed him over the edge to choose digital for AotC... Not sure if that's true.
"They weren't a major player in the video world until digital cameras came along" is an odd line to use. Sony had a major presence in the analogue tubed SD broadcast camera market in the 1980s (Sony BVP-3330, Sony BVP-360), and were near-universal in the analogue SD CCD camera market alongside Ikegami and Philips/BTS. In the UK the BBC was nearly 'all-Sony' for its outside broadcast fleet when the switch from tubed cameras to analogue CCD cameras took place (not all CCD cameras are digital). Other European broadcasters like RAI had already moved to Sony tubed cameras. The Betacam SP 4:3 analogue CCD integrated camcorder was universal in TV News from the late 80s and throughout the 90s. The Digital Betacam SD camcorder was near-universal for 4:3 and 16:9 SD production from the early-to-mid 90s - used for both factual documentary and drama. (The BBC shots lots of drama on Digital Betacam)
The funny thing is that CMOS sensors were used for photo and videos before CCD were and they were inferior and in a lot of ways still are inferior to CCD sensors and then we went to CCD for a while which is newer then back to CMOS.
Getting around to all of these lol. What I meant to say was that Sony was not really in the film industry. They didn't really make film cameras or have their cameras used on movies until digital came along. Even then it took them over 20 years or more to get the cameras to the point they could be used for a movie. I said that based on the context in my head that the series has been about cinema cameras, but should have clarified that statement. Sorry for the confusion on that!
Another interesting thing is that Sony had demonstrated high-definition electronic cameras as early as 1981! They started selling one, the HDC-100, in 1984. You can find lots of videos taken with these early Sony HD cameras by searching "Analog HDVS" in UA-cam.
I remember the Sony F-900 was the main Digital Cinema Camera back in the beginning. It was the workhorse. Joined later by the Viper Camera and Panasonic Varicam. I think even though Star Wars Ep 2 was the first film shot digitally with the F-900 it was actually Robert Rodriguez "Once Upon a time in Mexico" that was released first in theaters. Lucas was definitely sharing the potential of digital cinema with many filmmakers at the time and Rodriguez jumped in. David Fincher used the Viper for Zodiac. It was such an exciting time to hear all the buzz about the new possibilities with digital cinema although many DPs resisted. Allen Daviau however had such an open mind about the new technology. I love this abandoned camera series.This channel is the History Channel for cinematographers or anyone that can appreciate this.
You're right! There were a couple things that came out before this movie was released. But such a cool time in film history! Can only imagine the craziness of trying to use something like this to make such a technically heavy movie
Its also a 3CCD camera, in that way is superior to what is used today. While Sony still makes 3CMOS cameras, the sensor sizes are small and they are intended for broadcast use. But F-900 shot 3x2MP, while modern 1080p bayer sensor camera shoots 1x2MP and interpolates 4MP worth of data. So they actually got real 1080p, and this is why it looks quite good and on parr with film in color detail. As film is digitized by scanning, and this gives real RGB values, so you get 3x2MP from 1080p scan.
@@Nobody-Nowhere The Sony PXW-Z750 is a 3CMOS 2/3" camera with 9.6 mm * 5.4 mm sensors with a resolution of 3840x2160 (8+ MP each) and a global electronic shutter, outputs 3840x2160/4:2:2/10-bit uncompressed via the 12G-SDI output. It costs over $40k for the body alone and there's footage of it on UA-cam. I have an HDW-F900R HDCAM and an SRW-9000 HDCAM SR camcorder, which are 1920x1080 3CCD cameras.
I realize you have to keep this abandoned theme woven into your story but the f900 was more outmoded rather than abandoned. A version of the camera was still available up until a five or so years ago. You want an abandoned camera? Try researching the RCA CCD-1 ENG camera.
Abandoned, discontinued, outmoded... Yeah, it kind of is woven into the series. I try and keep the story a bit dramatic and fun to keep interest in it. For this one I was more speaking of the original version of the camera that George Lucas used. The following versions were great! And I'm actually going further along the timeline to talk about the Sony F35 and the Panavision Genesis as well. But I'll take a look at that camera! And thanks for watching!
Sony in Panavision had joint development programs years earlier than what you described. How do I know? Because I lived in Burbank at the time and occasionally would drive over to their facility and visit with the man who ran that part of Panavision. They were using one of maybe five cameras on the planet. All of this is prior to 1993.
Nice! Yeah, I only have the information that's available to me in bits here and there pieced together from all sides of the story. But Sony and Panavision both say they partnered in 1997 for creating digital cinema cameras on their respective websites in their history. Also, the panavision sony partnership on the camera also aligned with what George Lucas said so that's why I ran with that story.
Yeah. I first heard of a Sony/Panavision HD camera in 1992 after reading about it in an American Cinematographer article. Can't remember the month, but it's the 1992 issue with Batman on the cover.
The F900 was not Panavision's first non-film cinema camera. The Panacam II was Panavisions first electronic camera. Do a video about that camera... almost nobody knows about.
Another abandoned cinema camera was the Viper Thomson, used by David Fincher (Zodiac, Benjamin Button) and Michael Mann (Miami Vice). I've got the pleasure of working with this camera, pretty unique. After this camera Thomson never did another film camera and continue with his tv and live events camera business.
Worth noting… the camera pictured at 4:52 is NOT a “Digital Betacam” - it’s a “Betacam SP”, the analog predecessor of the Digital Betacam. Betacam SP was the dominant professional broadcast video standard camcorder format for about 15 years (believe it or not) before digital video technology was developed.
VIDEO NOTES: Several people have mentioned I said that Sony was not in the video camera game until this point in history. What I meant by that was they were never really in the film camera industry (AKA didn't really make film cameras) and therefore never really in the movie industry fully until then. They were absolutely making cameras way before then 😅Sorry for misspeaking on that!
An HD 3 CCD-chip camera. CCD meant it did not suffer from rolling shutter artifacts. It recorded to HDCAM tape. 1440x1080 like HDV. 8 bit. Knowing all of that I anxiously tracked the progress of this film and when it was presented in digital at a theater in Burbank I was all in. I was not disappointed. The quality was excellent. No gate weave, scratches or hair. The film itself was another story. But in terms of delivering an image on the big screen (not some crappy multiplex screen) this digital premiere was absolutely stunning.
One disadvantage about using digital cameras at that time is the prequels were shot natively in 1080p rather than 4k. Had they bought shot on 35mm or even 75mm they could be scanned now at 4k or higher. Now any 4k release of AOTC or ROTS is an artificial digital upscale and not true 4k.
Awesome video! Loved all the BTS. This camera is near and dear to my heart! I probably own one of the last working F900 cameras. I have an adapter and can shoot Canon glass on it. The result is amazing! I think there was an important topic that was missed in the vid: ASPECT RATIO! Lucas obviously wanted wide screen, so rather than use an anamorphic adapter (only one existed at the time) they actually cropped down; blasphemy! That means they shot on tape at 1440 x 1080 (which was upscaled to 1080) but then they added black bars... so they could go from 1.78 to 2.35. They would have lost a lot of visual detail in doing so, which was probably another contributing factor to Episode II not looking as great as film. If they could have shot in true 1980x1080 AND with an anamorphic adapter (which I can do with my F900) then their image would have looked more comparable to film (due to better resolution and more detail to work with in post). Looking forward to the follow up video. Let me know if you want a special clip shot for it!
Just imagine if Lucas hadn't sold LucasFilm to Disney and had used modern digital camera tools for his Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. I wonder how much farther he would have pushed digital camera technology just doing his Star Wars films in the 2010s. Dude was an innovator. Still, I think that as technology pushing as this all was, the Sony F900 still couldn't truly compare to 35mm film. The dynamic range and resolution were not as good. The convenience for Lucas makes sense. Sadly, the Original Trilogy and The Phantom Menace look better because they were shot on film.
Yeah, the Phantom Menace has really nice look to it! And yeah, if he had the tools around today you gotta wonder how much better star wars could be. At this point some of the recent Star Wars shows are starting to feel a bit lazy with how they're making them from the writing, editing, and stylistic choices.
Just imagine if Lucas had had the balls to stand up to the bitter needs that ruined what it meant to be a star wars fan in the early 2000s and stuck to his original vision. I'm so thankful now that most of the prequel hate has simmered down and they can be appreciated for what they are, instead of being blasted for not conforming to people's expectations.
@@SuperballsSupervidsOnYT The prequels fail on every level of storytelling. Him getting sensitive over constructive criticism doesn't make him look good.
Well to be fair they did push the industry forward with The Mandalorian and the invention of The Volume. Now that technology is being used all over the industry instead of green screens. To be fair it doesn't always look the best, but like digital cameras it's just at the beginning and will only get better. Its use in The Batman and House of the Dragon looked fantastic.
I can't even tell how i hated the LOOK of the F900. The badest Cinema Camera used in Films the last 50 Years. Lucas mad such a bad Mistake, added with the other fundamental Flaws of the Prequels, the LOOK was and remains CATASTROPHIC (Blown out Highlights, bad Colors, less Resolution, Videogamelook). The Dillinger Movie with Johnny Depp was the next bad Example. Even J. Cameron mad a huge Mistake with using (maybe hugely sponsored) later Sony Crap Cameras in AVATAR 1, with it's very bad Real-Shot Scenes.
Did I hear him say that Sony was NOT a major player until digital cameras? Uh, have you heard of Beta-SP, the analog broadcast format that was the standard in broadcast journalism since the mid-80s at least? And then there was Digital Beta, but he did mention that. Good video nevertheless. Wasn't it the first Jurassic Park that was the first one to go fully digital in a movie?
Meant to pin this but misspoke here. I meant that they were never really in the film/cinema camera industry and therefore never really in the movie industry fully until then. They were absolutely making cameras way before then, not what I meant 😅
Hmm I would say that at least in Asia, especially in China, South Korea, and Japan the f900 and f900r was used well into the 2010s to film a LOT of popular TV dramas, it wasn't really until circa 2012-2013 with tv shows like That Winter, the Wind Blows first Utilizing large sensored cinema cameras like the Alexa, that asia finally slowly abandoned these 2/3 inch ccd cameras for TV drama production, but even then now days you still see a lot of low budget tv dramas in Japan STILL using f900 to film their episodes due to how familiar the crew is with the camera and the flexibility in focal range that the b4 lenses allowed.
A buddy of mine who is a hip hop producer actually owns one of these. I got a chance to shoot with it on a project. When he got it we had to clean the sand out of it because it was one of the cameras used on 'Tatooine'.
"Sony was not a major player in the digital world until digital cameras came along" - what? Umatic, Betamax, Betacam, Video 8, Hi8 - you got to be kidding. Also, CCD-based cameras do not need to record digitally. Sony released a CCD-based Video 8 camcorder before the Mavica. Too many errors in this video.
"Sony was not a major player in the "video" world" I slightly misspoke in this section. Based on the context of the series was meaning more they were not a player in the movie industry for making films with cameras until digital video. Also, I mentioned the Betacam and others in this video as well as the first camera with a CCD sensor they used in the X-C1. I wasn't necessarily trying to recreate the entire timeline of CCD also noted in the video that this wasn't the beginning of CCD sensor history with sony and it's a topic we'd come back to at another time. We could spend all day talking about the various cameras Sony released around this time.
Technicly Lucas was not the first to shoot an entire movie digitaly with Sony Cine Alta, actualy French director Pitof do a Vidocq movie in 2001 and some italian TV production also use it, that was the real test that convince lucas film team to use the second generation of the Cine alta.
My French friends on Discord have let me know about this 😂 technically, from what I've heard, they were the first to get the movie out but Lucas filmed with digital first. But I could be wrong. A lot of various people claiming credit at this time
@@FrameVoyager hi definition was a very old process too... check MUSE Hi Vision or Sony HDVS they broadcast an analog process to shoot and record HD since the late 80's, the youtube Channel Reely interesting have upload a lot of content in MUSE Hi Vision laserdisc and HDVS disc, it's stunning also some old live évent like toto live in montreux 1991 was shot with the process.
Who said they had to re record all of the dialog because of the camera? A) why when they would record principle sound on a separate device and B) they didn't know they had a sound issue until after they finished principle photography?
Right? I thought it’d have had waaay more to do with how noisy sci-fi sets are. That’s a whole lotta wood and plastic those actors are tromping around on.
The actors said it. More details here www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a40090224/ewan-mcgregor-the-attack-of-the-clones-adr-dialogue/#:~:text=Apparently%2C%20Attack%20of%20the%20Clones,couldn't%20change%20the%20lenses.
@@FrameVoyager So in this somewhat sketchy story, we blame the new digital camera for a constant sound (that is the same frequency as a voice) that is coming from Video Village and subsequently ruins all dialog recordings? And it takes until the end of the production (instead of during say, I dunno, the first time cans were put on or the first room tone recorded, or in the several dailies sessions screened by incredibly smart and talented people and no one noticed? I gotta call BS. And the only one to report this is an actor? Did Jar Jar maybe need help with its lines?
While working with film may have been way harder, it looked demonstrably *BETTER* for another decade or more. Looking back the 90's with its digital effects on practical models all shot on film is widely regarded as the pinnacle of VFX. Lucas' best work was always when he had constraints and film is a constraint.
Thank you so much, man for putting all this information together for all of us. I’m here just learning and catching up with history and knowledge 🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏
Technically, there was ONE scene from Phantom Menace that was shot digitally (the midichlorian scene) but the camera actually shot at 30 frames per second, so Lucas actually requested to the manufacturers to build a camera that would shoot at 24 for his next film.
Yep! They had to go back and do a couple of reshoots or something. I think I had a clip of Lucas in this mentioning that and that it matched so well with the film and no one noticed.
@@FrameVoyager No one noticed back then. You can clearly tell where's the blue screen and it looks less sharp now. In the theatre you are immersed in the story and back then you were watching a print of a print of a print in your local theatre so all the differences you could see in the real first generation comparison were gone by the time it reached you. Now, today, with the Blu Rays you are getting first generation footage for both the film and the digital bits and you notice it (I don't mention Disney+ because there's the compression and variable bitrate of streaming). I think back then George didn't realize that Star Wars is so beloved that it's not just about the audience that watches it first in theatres, but also about the preservation and future proofing of the material. I've heard experts mention this for most films shot today digitally. That they are working with smaller usable color spaces and resolutions than what you can extract out of a film negative + the conservation of a digital file is a problem because formats, codecs and footage are a big question mark for future use of the material.
@@Jorge_Ambruster I did notice it back then and guessed that was the scene shot in HD. I still would've thought that particular scene was of a slightly "lower quality" even if I was unaware of a scene being shot in HD.
I remember with Revenge of the Sith came out there was an article in the newspaper about it being shot on digital and to see it properly you had to go to a cinema with a digital projector. So I had to drive into a fringe city suburb 30mins away to see it in its fully digital glory. The next movie to create that intrigue for me was the Hobbit trilogy which was shot in 48 fps. The first one looked too much like a tv show but the later 2 instalments had warmer colour grading so wasn’t super noticeable.
Ah so it wasn't abandoned, just discontinued; those words have very different meanings. I liked the video overall but don't like being deceived, disliked.
Glad you liked it! Sorry you felt deceived but that's the question the series asks in all the videos and even still feel like this is light clickbait compared to most of UA-cam because it offers content that you said you enjoyed just with the technicality. That's UA-cam
@@FrameVoyager I get that, and I understand as a fellow content creator. I was a bit harsh in my initial comment and I'd like to apologize. I do think the name could be done differently, like having it just be the series name.
@@CrazyWeeMonkey appreciate that! And I've had a few people ask me about that. The hard thing is I A/B tested a lot of names for this series even "discontinued" and it just didn't perform well in the testing. So it's hard to change it when even the like rate is 97% and I've only had a few negative comments on it. If I had a more overwhelming negative response I'd definitely change it, but for the most part this has been one of my most liked series. Really do appreciate the ideas though and for you reaching back out!
@@FrameVoyager Not THAT much because when I was in cinema school (2008-2011) we shot fiction on film but docu/news on video and when I got to work with the F900 it was frankly like any Sony ENG camera. (more or less :p) The real revolution for me was the RED ONE. (my last year in cinema school we were still shooting 35mm film BUT were trained on RED ONE and Alexa [and technically F23/35 but just from theorical standpoint, we never got to touch them lol])
@@FrameVoyager You have nice manners online. After combing through a few more of your thoughtful responses I saw your intent was to discuss Sony’s entry into cinema and not video. In that context all your points and historical groundwork make sense. Being deeply rooted in the “video” realm myself (and making a major distinction between video and cinema) your opening statement about “Sony not being a major player in the video realm until digital cameras came along” just through me off because of Sony literally starting the video revolution in 1967 and that being the sort of thing one learns in Video 101 at wacky performance/conceptual Art school. I now understand what you were saying and appreciate the content you craft 💯 🤓
@@FrameVoyager also, funny anecdote, a F900 was lent to my school in 2005 and I was one of a few lucky students chosen to make something with it. I totally dismissed it and felt standard definition was enough😂🤦🏻♂️ lol. I was using ancient computers and embracing retro tech and didn’t even have anything to properly experience the resolution. Those render times + storage requirements turned me off haha
@@1bit @1bit appreciate it! With this series I knew I'd get some slight details wrong or misspeak at some point 😅 hard not to! I appreciate those who let me know in a more constructive way than attacking my credibility! But I totally get the way I phrased that one section confusing what I meant to say so thanks for pointing it out! And that's awesome that you had access to it. It's been interesting doing this series and hearing from people about them using these cameras or seeing discontinued ones at some store 😂
The F-900 was the workhorse at my film school back in 2006 along with the XL-2. When I started in the industry a couple years later, shows were still using it and the HDCam SR variant. Perhaps you can do one of these about the XL series of cameras from Canon or the DVX-100 series from Panasonic. Both game changers that brought 24p filmmaking to the masses. Thanks for making great content!
You are completely incorrect... Sony has a rich past of designing, making, and providing analogue tube cameras for Television broadcasts since the late 70s!
Need to pin this somewhere but I misspoke. I meant they were never really in the film camera industry and therefore never really in the movie industry fully until then. They were absolutely making cameras way before then 😅
@@tekvax01 No you're good! I've had a few people mention this to me haha. Sometimes when I write the scripts I know what I'm talking about and don't think fully about how it sounds. So appreciate everyone pointing that out! Keeps me from doing it in other videos haha
George probably saw sony's early HD days in the late 80's. Theres alotta stuff now up on youtube shot, film style included, that were analog HD. Thats why this happened in the late 90's they simply digitized the analog HD they had with panavision and lucas. No one really bit so the format sat and waited for another decade till they made this partnership. Alot like 4k. where its only really taken off in the 2020's.
Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (digital) look like absolute ASS compared to the Phantom Menace (35mm) Digital cameras, especially in the early 2000s, were complete garbage for filmmaking.
1st Sony with George Lucas did big move to DIGITAL,then to move from 1080 to 2k-4k The RED brand did a big ACTION,but you must know they as RED lied about own sensors,They bought and buying it from FORZA company,,,and after 15 years their 28K legend did not come TRUE,because it is not possible with current technology WHEN IMAX give us only 12K,which is the BEST of MARKET,,,but their pressure to market and consumers tendancy caused ARRI went to create a MIRACLE named ALEXA....
Pros: He helped with the creation of digital cameras for making movies cheaper and more accessible for the poor and for the rich but lazy filmmakers. It had to happen eventually. Cons: George clearly was thinking on pulling the trick at that particular moment and he wasn't thinking on posterity, now that 1080i looks like garbage, unlike his previous movies that were shot on film that still look like movies at the current 4k resolution standards, and will continue looking as such as time goes by, because real film is real film. He should had DEVELOPED THE CAMERA FOR TV, and kept the 35mm for STAR WARS. Because you know, specially you who are into movie production, that the image of Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith is technically and aesthetically INFERIOR compared to the other Star Wars movies that were shot on film. You know it, and the undeniable importance of the existence of that camera, that had to exist, yes, thanks George and Sony, won't make the final product quality any better. It wasn't ready for cinema. And when you have the option of using the real thing or use something else with the intention of making it look like the real thing. USE the REAL Thing! Don't be lazy. Would you shoot on 1080i today? I doubt it, and the reason why you wouldn't shoot on 1080i today is the same reason why I don't liked this cameras. They were not ready for movies.
It almost destroyed the Star Wars franchise.... What was he thinking, It looked CRAP. I still think Film always outshines digital even today's ALEXA 35... And don't forget all major films shot on ALEXA's or other Digital are transposed to film and then re-digitised. I think that saids it all.
bruh, Sony also abandoned their first 4k cinema projector. The cinema I work at still has 2 units right now, no one wants it, no one can fix them if something goes wrong with them, they are basically just a pair of paperweights. It is not a bad system, ahead of its time tbh, but it is a complicated system with a lot of proprietary and expensive parts. My boss almost purchased 500 units back then, lucky someone talked him back to try 10 units first
3:20 you're ignoring that sony also had professional ENG cameras, they weren't *just* doing handycams like you make it out to have been. Heard of Betamax? Yeah, it wasn't just a consumer video format, in fact, least of all it was a consumer video format
I bought a panasonic dvx100b and shot some home footage. It's a standard definition dv cam and everyone I show the tapes to are blown away with how real it looks. I don't know why this is but something tells me that we have become so use to seeing 4k and 8k footage that our brains can relate extremely unreal detail to what's more natural. To be honest when I look at a 4k tv my eyes hurt after 10 mins it's so much to take in all at once. I grew up on tube TVs and watched the progression over the years and I miss the old TVs. Mario 64 on a flat screen plasma screen looks like trash same game on a tube TV looks smooth.
I'm a fan and i appreciate George but this camera was supposed to be used for news footage. Episode II ended up looking like shit because he shot on it.
@@FrameVoyager Hollywood / Feature Film making has always gotten the elite of technology. Just look at the budget and the prestige! And the competition to get close.
I can't remember specifically, but I also recall this movie (or episode III), George wanted movie theaters to invest in to DigiBeta machines instead of film so that they can have the best quality video quality in theaters. He wanted 4:4:4 color but given the fact that DigiBeta machines were so expensive, it wasn't feasible.
what cables did you use on your camera to see her image? how can i see her picture? do i have to have an sdi monitor? do i have to use the three side connections and connect to an sdi monitor? I have a sony hdw f900 cinetalta camera
THANKS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT ON THIS SERIES! Just a reminder that though we research these videos as thoroughly as we can, we will miss some details in some of the complex stories that are only available now through old videos and archived webpages. So please let us know if we miss anything and we will be sure to amend it here in the comments!
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I don't think a lot of people know how instrumental Lucas was to the digital world. Not only did they use the CIneAlta for AotC but Lucas also had formed a digital division Lucasfilm creating a team of people that created Digital Audio editing, Digital Video editing, Digital Compositing and early 3D Animation. That team was later sold of to Steve Jobs and became Pixar. Funnily enough the only thing Lucas didn't forsee was 3D animation as a useful tool that could be superior to practical or miniature vfx; having scrapped that tool and selling away Pixar. Despite this, Lucas and his ILM team are still at the center of many innovations that we take for granted in film making today.
Exactly! He really pushed technology along so fast. Always cool to learn about it
@@FrameVoyager 3D is superior to practical in terms of possibilities but looks fake. End of story.
@@_arturjutkowiak_film That's absolutely correct ...if you live in the late 90s. Modern VFX are practically indistinguishable from reality, except for specific cases, like 3D models of humans.
He was also going through an expensive divorce.
Not really.
If you can figure out what happened to the Kodak Digital Super 8 Camera, you'll solve one of life's greatest mysteries.
😏 I'll do some digging 😉
Dude! Seriously. I dream about that camera til this day
It was basically a Kickstarter scam and had nothing to do with Kodak.
@@MartinMunthe Hey! Scams make for good stories
Wow F900... Remembered the days where its signal was sent By 3 cables RGB bnc and the cable was thick... 20m of the cable is hard work... Setting up the 1st gen Monitor was really heavy... Took 3 person to load it up a trolley... And it is huge... Camera is really2 power hungry i remembered using 20 14.4v anton bauer trimpacs for a full day shoot. One thing lovely is the camera is digibeta sized.... Memories....
I still think George should've shot the prequels on film. Not just because film looks better, but because there were still some technological aspects of the digital camera he used that he either overlooked, didn't foresee, or just didn't care about. Such as the highest resolution of that camera being 1080p, which may be great for short films on UA-cam but not exactly the resolution to show on the big screen, and, as stated by Niko from *_Corridor Crew,_* the camera's compression ratio was most likely at 4:1:1, meaning they couldn't capture all that color and luma data and as a result, all the blue screen shots looked so obvious.
He did with the Phantom Menace and that's why that one still looks remarkably better than Attack of the clones
@@FrameVoyager I know that. And I think because he shot _The Phantom Menace_ on film, it arguably has the best looking VFX of the prequel trilogy.
I’ve enjoyed your series (even appeared in some of your archival clips) but I have to take issue with your wrap up of the F900 here. This camera was ridiculously successful for Sony. They sold tons of them, way more than they ever thought they would, and with slight revisions and updates continued selling the F900 (the last iteration was the F900R) for something like eight years. That’s an incredibly long run for a digital cinema camera; that’s even longer than most film camera model production runs. I wouldn’t say Sony “abandoned” the F900, I’d say they successfully milked it for everything they could for as long as possible.
Oh, for sure! I probably should have used some better phrases at the end of this video. That's why I did acknowledge that it did go on to film a whole lot the following 8 years afterward. But then was overtaken by other versions of new cameras. But they did milk the line for a while!
@@FrameVoyager If I may make a suggestion, maybe this series could do with a name change since a lot of really interesting cameras aren't really "abandoned" so much as naturally phased out as part of an upgrade process. Maybe "Forgotten Cameras"?
@@seangentry2943 Hey! It's a good suggestion it really is!
The only issue I have with it is the name is not as marketable, as I did a lot of A/B testing on this content prior to making the series. For content to be seen sometimes I have to finesse the name and it's a bit more fun with the "ABANDONED" kind of mantra. I may start doing a better job maybe asking was this camera abandoned or was it just replaced? I feel like I kind of did that in this video more, but I can be a little clearer in future videos. Or maybe even keep the series name but change the titles a bit? So maybe I can answer it as a question for some that were more phased out.
Some of it I have to play the UA-cam game and make it a bit clickbaity, like most UA-camrs do, but also still deliver content value when you click on the video. It's a hard line to kind of play and I like to add a bit of a dramatic spin to this content that often times can be a bit dry if you know what I mean!
@@FrameVoyager I see, maybe coming at it from an angle of "Was it abandoned?" could be a better compromise
@@seangentry2943 Phrasing it a bit better in my follow up scripts. Was it discontinued or phased out and what caused that to happen?
This video really misses the mark. The main thing to understand about the HDW-F900 is that it's basically just a 1080p broadcast video ENG camera that's running at 24p, complete with the broadcast-standard 2/3" image format and HDCAM recording format. It traces its lineage to the HDW-700, the first 1080p broadcast camera, which obviously is part of a long line of DigiBeta and Betacam broadcast stuff going back to the 1980s that this video completely omitted from discussion (while bizarrely focusing on 1990s-era consumer handycams instead). There's no discussion about the fundamental problems of using 2/3" image sensors recording into HDCAM for digital cinema: you need extremely fast glass to get any sort of focus control, you have zero dynamic range, and it turns out that compressed and chroma-subsampled 1080p is pretty soft compared to a 35mm print. That's why Attack of the Clones looks like it was shot by Channel 7 Eyewitness News instead of a film crew - because it basically was.
Appreciate the comments! Planning on going back and doing a follow up video addressing areas I missed in these videos so I'll pin this for that video. You ok with this comment being used?
I understand the direction in your comments but a couple of corrections are in order. The Sony HDW-700 camera was 1035i lines (not 1080) and recorded in interlace (not progressive). The follow on camera HDW-700A was a 1080i (interlaced) camera but did not record in 1080 progressive (1080p) either. Sony invented Progressive Segmented Frames (psF) to bridge the gap between interlaced (two fields per frame) recording and true progressive recording for display. I've shot with all three and appreciate the build quality and reliability of Sony's HDCam cameras.
"you have zero dynamic range"
LIES!
I think one detail that was missed was that Sony had been working on digital high-definition equipment a while before the HDW-F900, beyond just consumer handycams, starting in 1988 with Digital HDVS recorders, then in the early 90s with the Sony HDC-500 (which introduced CCDs into their pro HDTV camera line). Their early experience in broadcast HD helped in the development of HDCAM, which had heavy influence in early CineAlta hardware.
For sure! It's so hard to cover everything in these videos without stepping in other content I have lined up to talk about as well!.
But that's a great point!
@@FrameVoyager Hmm, curious to see what else you got in store then ;)
I was looking for this information online a while ago, got it all in text, and now you made it into a video! Fantastic job! Thank you, had lots of fun watching it!
Appreciate it! Yeah, no one has really been compiling all of this into one piece of content so thought I'd give it a go! I'm sure not everything is exactly perfect but the best I could put together from various sources.
Interesting...I really enjoyed the clip from Bleeker Stereo & TV...Tim Bleeker who was the son of the guy who started it, is a friend of mine from High School. I'll have to point him to this video! Thanx!
Oh that's really cool! Yeah, I found that floating around online and thought it would be fun to include some of those old sony commercials in the video!
To be fair only thing that I didn't like about movies being shot on the low-res is that when you want to upscale them years later, they are really hard to work with. When with analog media, you just "take photos" of it with high-res camera.
True! Seems like some of the other future cameras like the Genesis or the F35 had large 5.8k sensors but would output at 1920x1080 footage. So I'd imagine those might be a little easier to upscale later on? But yeah, can only imagine trying to upscale the convoluted mess of Attack of the Clones lol
Implying that Sony went from consumer handycams straight to the F900 is very off. They made ENG cameras for decades. I agree that the F900’s life on movie sets was short-lived, but it was actually pretty successful in the television world with the F900R until XDCAM line of the 700 and F800 cut into its market.
This camera always fascinated me. Thanks for the video
Very interesting but why talk about this camera and not talk about "Vidocq"? Although its considered as not a very good movie, it was shot entirely with the F900 (contrary to Lucas who shot only parts of SW2) and it was one year before!
Exactly, not mentioning Vidocq was strange considering the fact it was released a year before AOTC. And it's a good movie, better than AOTC.
Because 35mm has just one row of sprocket holes…
GEORGE LUCAS,Sony,Panavision started the way reached to RED then ARRI....
Grrr, CCD sensors aren't digital!
Swaniawski Crossing
The real problem with F900 was, that it recorded in HDCAM format that was 3:1:1. Meaning croma resolution was only 480x1080.
This is why Lucas wanted HDCAM SR for Ep3, which was 4:4:4. Meaning 4x chroma samples, from 0.5 Mpx to 2 Mpx.
The jump in bandwidth was from 112 Mbit/s to even 880 Mbit/s. A massive step up.
Yep! It's crazy how fast things were adapted after early uses of the digital camera. It feels like George Lucas had to use the F900 to convince Sony to get into it.
I guess that's not surprising since HDCAM was introduced in the mid-90s, HDCAM SR wasn't ready until after Attack of the Clones was released.
It was used for years in reality/doc world but there was a Miranda board that added hd-sdi and then that went into a recorder like the nano flash
I did some AC work with it in tv drama and even one motion pic. In poor or small market areas you use what you can afford. Original cam had 6 bnc connections, one of them was hd-sdi. But it did not offer sd-downconversion or pull-down. Later models had downconversion at least and Sony also offered upgrades to it...
@@billyj.causeyvideoguy7361, nope, standard hd-sdi, which is 4:2:2.
And they recorded to internal tape in Ep2.
I got to use the F900 about 11\12 years ago. It was B-roll football footage for a Japanese TV station here in Italy: they wanted 1920x1080 at 60i and the rental house had their HDC-730s out, so the only thing available was the old 900. It felt weird to use what was once considered cutting edge cinema equipment for TV, but that's obsolescence for you.
Still really cool though! It all had to start somewhere and it's fascinating to learn about and see how far everything has come in the past 20 years
@@FrameVoyager Indeed. The cool thing about the F900 was that, when everything was said and done, it was a 2\3'', tape-based camera - essentially, a camera from the Beta family. Hence, it was very comfortable to use for run&gun: like most cameras of its kind, it rested comfortably on your shoulder and didn't weight too much. Using it with a Canon HDTV B4 lenses like I did essentially felt like shooting with a Sony MSW-970. That was essentially a poor man's DigiBeta using Mpeg IMX tapes and it was one of the 2\3'' systems I worked with the most in those days.
The fact that an ENG broadcast camera got used in cinematography :O
Right?
You can't just drop that info about the dialogue being completely destroyed using these cameras and having to redo all of it in a tiny nugget like that.
I was under the impression that dialogue is traditionally recorded separately. Was that not the case here?
I’ve always felt going digital for the prequels was a bad idea from a creative perspective considering the movies were meant to tie in with a film from 1977, but it’s clear George Lucas was more focused on being a technical innovator above everything else (plus he felt he could just go back and change the originals). I don’t think the prequels themselves have aged very well due the technical aspects, but it is nice to see that there was good to come out of them in the long run due to the way they helped to revolutionize the industry.
Agreed!
revenge of the sith has aged more gently than attack of the clones. the script is bad but the vfx are much more pleasing to observe
No technology could have saved those three movies.
The biggest reason for his "innovation" was to gain total control, and reduce the traditional process, involvement, and cost.
I really apreashiate your pacing on this I never felt like I had to put this to 2x speed. I feel a lot of creators could learn from you. Also, I always hated working with this camera but that was years later when people and sony would still want to use this camera instead of a red or HVX.
Appreciate it! For UA-cam you really gotta cut out the pauses and breathes, shortens videos like this by a couple of minutes!
That's cool you got to use this camera though! Seems like a fascinating time to be in film!
These cameras were barely HD and barely 24p. I worked in post production on a few Robert Rodriguez movies around 2001/2002 that used F900s and they were severely chroma sub-sampled, you could see interlacing artefacts on really fast objects (like sparks) meaning they were not true progressive frames, and I think the native resolution of the sensor was 1440x1080.
The chroma subsampling and the artificial edge sharpening was making our lives *really* difficult for chroma keying.
I heard somewhere that Lucas saw some test footage from Rodriguez for Once Upon a Time in Mexico and that it pushed him over the edge to choose digital for AotC... Not sure if that's true.
Top videos by the way. I really enjoy this series, keep up the good work!
Appreciate it!
It was the other way around, Lucas showed him some AOTC footage and that convinced Rodriguez to go digital...
so they were shooting hdcam, as opposed to the uncompressed 10 bit? thats crazy to think about, especially with all the CGI involved.
@@Dennis94913 This was 2001, so I expect it's less '10 bit' and more 'just 8-bit RGB'.
"They weren't a major player in the video world until digital cameras came along" is an odd line to use. Sony had a major presence in the analogue tubed SD broadcast camera market in the 1980s (Sony BVP-3330, Sony BVP-360), and were near-universal in the analogue SD CCD camera market alongside Ikegami and Philips/BTS. In the UK the BBC was nearly 'all-Sony' for its outside broadcast fleet when the switch from tubed cameras to analogue CCD cameras took place (not all CCD cameras are digital). Other European broadcasters like RAI had already moved to Sony tubed cameras. The Betacam SP 4:3 analogue CCD integrated camcorder was universal in TV News from the late 80s and throughout the 90s. The Digital Betacam SD camcorder was near-universal for 4:3 and 16:9 SD production from the early-to-mid 90s - used for both factual documentary and drama. (The BBC shots lots of drama on Digital Betacam)
The funny thing is that CMOS sensors were used for photo and videos before CCD were and they were inferior and in a lot of ways still are inferior to CCD sensors and then we went to CCD for a while which is newer then back to CMOS.
Getting around to all of these lol. What I meant to say was that Sony was not really in the film industry. They didn't really make film cameras or have their cameras used on movies until digital came along. Even then it took them over 20 years or more to get the cameras to the point they could be used for a movie. I said that based on the context in my head that the series has been about cinema cameras, but should have clarified that statement. Sorry for the confusion on that!
Another interesting thing is that Sony had demonstrated high-definition electronic cameras as early as 1981!
They started selling one, the HDC-100, in 1984. You can find lots of videos taken with these early Sony HD cameras by searching "Analog HDVS" in UA-cam.
I remember the Sony F-900 was the main Digital Cinema Camera back in the beginning. It was the workhorse. Joined later by the Viper Camera and Panasonic Varicam. I think even though Star Wars Ep 2 was the first film shot digitally with the F-900 it was actually Robert Rodriguez "Once Upon a time in Mexico" that was released first in theaters. Lucas was definitely sharing the potential of digital cinema with many filmmakers at the time and Rodriguez jumped in. David Fincher used the Viper for Zodiac. It was such an exciting time to hear all the buzz about the new possibilities with digital cinema although many DPs resisted. Allen Daviau however had such an open mind about the new technology. I love this abandoned camera series.This channel is the History Channel for cinematographers or anyone that can appreciate this.
You're right! There were a couple things that came out before this movie was released. But such a cool time in film history! Can only imagine the craziness of trying to use something like this to make such a technically heavy movie
Its also a 3CCD camera, in that way is superior to what is used today. While Sony still makes 3CMOS cameras, the sensor sizes are small and they are intended for broadcast use.
But F-900 shot 3x2MP, while modern 1080p bayer sensor camera shoots 1x2MP and interpolates 4MP worth of data. So they actually got real 1080p, and this is why it looks quite good and on parr with film in color detail. As film is digitized by scanning, and this gives real RGB values, so you get 3x2MP from 1080p scan.
@@Nobody-Nowhere The Sony PXW-Z750 is a 3CMOS 2/3" camera with 9.6 mm * 5.4 mm sensors with a resolution of 3840x2160 (8+ MP each) and a global electronic shutter, outputs 3840x2160/4:2:2/10-bit uncompressed via the 12G-SDI output. It costs over $40k for the body alone and there's footage of it on UA-cam. I have an HDW-F900R HDCAM and an SRW-9000 HDCAM SR camcorder, which are 1920x1080 3CCD cameras.
Kodak invented the worlds first digital camera in 1975 and then in 1988 Fuji released the Fujix DS-1P
Yep! And then tried to bury it haha. Doing a video on that here soon. The F900 was considered the worlds "first digital cinema camera"
"It's easy Grandma!"
*starts shaking with terror due to years of Sony menus*
Love the vid! Great as always! Thanks!
I realize you have to keep this abandoned theme woven into your story but the f900 was more outmoded rather than abandoned. A version of the camera was still available up until a five or so years ago. You want an abandoned camera? Try researching the RCA CCD-1 ENG camera.
Abandoned, discontinued, outmoded... Yeah, it kind of is woven into the series. I try and keep the story a bit dramatic and fun to keep interest in it. For this one I was more speaking of the original version of the camera that George Lucas used. The following versions were great! And I'm actually going further along the timeline to talk about the Sony F35 and the Panavision Genesis as well. But I'll take a look at that camera! And thanks for watching!
Sony in Panavision had joint development programs years earlier than what you described. How do I know? Because I lived in Burbank at the time and occasionally would drive over to their facility and visit with the man who ran that part of Panavision. They were using one of maybe five cameras on the planet. All of this is prior to 1993.
Nice! Yeah, I only have the information that's available to me in bits here and there pieced together from all sides of the story. But Sony and Panavision both say they partnered in 1997 for creating digital cinema cameras on their respective websites in their history. Also, the panavision sony partnership on the camera also aligned with what George Lucas said so that's why I ran with that story.
We only need the Panavision system!
small company, unable to develop codecs etc.
back then, only George Lucas was investing, that changed with RED
Yeah. I first heard of a Sony/Panavision HD camera in 1992 after reading about it in an American Cinematographer article. Can't remember the month, but it's the 1992 issue with Batman on the cover.
The F900 was not Panavision's first non-film cinema camera. The Panacam II was Panavisions first electronic camera. Do a video about that camera... almost nobody knows about.
oh, that one is on my list!
Another abandoned cinema camera was the Viper Thomson, used by David Fincher (Zodiac, Benjamin Button) and Michael Mann (Miami Vice). I've got the pleasure of working with this camera, pretty unique. After this camera Thomson never did another film camera and continue with his tv and live events camera business.
That's on our list!
Didn't know that they shot movies with 3CCD cameras. Thats real 1080p, 3x2MP. Bayer sensors only do 1x2MP and interpolate 4MP worth of information.
Worth noting… the camera pictured at 4:52 is NOT a “Digital Betacam” - it’s a “Betacam SP”, the analog predecessor of the Digital Betacam. Betacam SP was the dominant professional broadcast video standard camcorder format for about 15 years (believe it or not) before digital video technology was developed.
Lucas was first to know that technological progress in cinematography will not help to make better movies. 🤮
haha for real haha
VIDEO NOTES: Several people have mentioned I said that Sony was not in the video camera game until this point in history. What I meant by that was they were never really in the film camera industry (AKA didn't really make film cameras) and therefore never really in the movie industry fully until then. They were absolutely making cameras way before then 😅Sorry for misspeaking on that!
An HD 3 CCD-chip camera. CCD meant it did not suffer from rolling shutter artifacts. It recorded to HDCAM tape. 1440x1080 like HDV. 8 bit. Knowing all of that I anxiously tracked the progress of this film and when it was presented in digital at a theater in Burbank I was all in. I was not disappointed. The quality was excellent. No gate weave, scratches or hair. The film itself was another story. But in terms of delivering an image on the big screen (not some crappy multiplex screen) this digital premiere was absolutely stunning.
One disadvantage about using digital cameras at that time is the prequels were shot natively in 1080p rather than 4k. Had they bought shot on 35mm or even 75mm they could be scanned now at 4k or higher. Now any 4k release of AOTC or ROTS is an artificial digital upscale and not true 4k.
@ivanribeiro3445 I warned him back in 1999....he wouldn't listen!
Awesome video! Loved all the BTS. This camera is near and dear to my heart!
I probably own one of the last working F900 cameras. I have an adapter and can shoot Canon glass on it. The result is amazing!
I think there was an important topic that was missed in the vid: ASPECT RATIO! Lucas obviously wanted wide screen, so rather than use an anamorphic adapter (only one existed at the time) they actually cropped down; blasphemy! That means they shot on tape at 1440 x 1080 (which was upscaled to 1080) but then they added black bars... so they could go from 1.78 to 2.35. They would have lost a lot of visual detail in doing so, which was probably another contributing factor to Episode II not looking as great as film. If they could have shot in true 1980x1080 AND with an anamorphic adapter (which I can do with my F900) then their image would have looked more comparable to film (due to better resolution and more detail to work with in post).
Looking forward to the follow up video. Let me know if you want a special clip shot for it!
i own too one of the last f900 working
I'm loving this ABANDONED series. Thank you for the effort that you put into this.
Just imagine if Lucas hadn't sold LucasFilm to Disney and had used modern digital camera tools for his Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. I wonder how much farther he would have pushed digital camera technology just doing his Star Wars films in the 2010s. Dude was an innovator.
Still, I think that as technology pushing as this all was, the Sony F900 still couldn't truly compare to 35mm film. The dynamic range and resolution were not as good. The convenience for Lucas makes sense. Sadly, the Original Trilogy and The Phantom Menace look better because they were shot on film.
Yeah, the Phantom Menace has really nice look to it!
And yeah, if he had the tools around today you gotta wonder how much better star wars could be. At this point some of the recent Star Wars shows are starting to feel a bit lazy with how they're making them from the writing, editing, and stylistic choices.
Just imagine if Lucas had had the balls to stand up to the bitter needs that ruined what it meant to be a star wars fan in the early 2000s and stuck to his original vision.
I'm so thankful now that most of the prequel hate has simmered down and they can be appreciated for what they are, instead of being blasted for not conforming to people's expectations.
@@SuperballsSupervidsOnYT The prequels fail on every level of storytelling. Him getting sensitive over constructive criticism doesn't make him look good.
Well to be fair they did push the industry forward with The Mandalorian and the invention of The Volume. Now that technology is being used all over the industry instead of green screens. To be fair it doesn't always look the best, but like digital cameras it's just at the beginning and will only get better. Its use in The Batman and House of the Dragon looked fantastic.
@@HBarnill What? The PT are excellent films.
Hey Guys, please put subtitles on your videos, i love them!
I can't even tell how i hated the LOOK of the F900. The badest Cinema Camera used in Films the last 50 Years. Lucas mad such a bad Mistake, added with the other fundamental Flaws of the Prequels, the LOOK was and remains CATASTROPHIC (Blown out Highlights, bad Colors, less Resolution, Videogamelook). The Dillinger Movie with Johnny Depp was the next bad Example.
Even J. Cameron mad a huge Mistake with using (maybe hugely sponsored) later Sony Crap Cameras in AVATAR 1, with it's very bad Real-Shot Scenes.
Did I hear him say that Sony was NOT a major player until digital cameras? Uh, have you heard of Beta-SP, the analog broadcast format that was the standard in broadcast journalism since the mid-80s at least? And then there was Digital Beta, but he did mention that. Good video nevertheless. Wasn't it the first Jurassic Park that was the first one to go fully digital in a movie?
Meant to pin this but misspoke here. I meant that they were never really in the film/cinema camera industry and therefore never really in the movie industry fully until then. They were absolutely making cameras way before then, not what I meant 😅
And for some of the Visual effects yes for Jurassic Park. But they filmed it with the Panavision Panaflex Gold Camera
Where’s the f35 abandoned video link that you mentioned at the end? Cheers
Sorry about that! Coming out this Friday, just needed to set it up for when it comes out. Should have mentioned that
I think it'd be interesting to do an episode on the Thomson Viper Filmstream at some point.
It's on my list!
@@FrameVoyager That would be an abandoned camera!
Hmm I would say that at least in Asia, especially in China, South Korea, and Japan the f900 and f900r was used well into the 2010s to film a LOT of popular TV dramas, it wasn't really until circa 2012-2013 with tv shows like That Winter, the Wind Blows first Utilizing large sensored cinema cameras like the Alexa, that asia finally slowly abandoned these 2/3 inch ccd cameras for TV drama production, but even then now days you still see a lot of low budget tv dramas in Japan STILL using f900 to film their episodes due to how familiar the crew is with the camera and the flexibility in focal range that the b4 lenses allowed.
A buddy of mine who is a hip hop producer actually owns one of these. I got a chance to shoot with it on a project. When he got it we had to clean the sand out of it because it was one of the cameras used on 'Tatooine'.
😂😂😂😂😂 it does get everywhere you know
"Sony was not a major player in the digital world until digital cameras came along" - what? Umatic, Betamax, Betacam, Video 8, Hi8 - you got to be kidding. Also, CCD-based cameras do not need to record digitally. Sony released a CCD-based Video 8 camcorder before the Mavica. Too many errors in this video.
"Sony was not a major player in the "video" world" I slightly misspoke in this section. Based on the context of the series was meaning more they were not a player in the movie industry for making films with cameras until digital video.
Also, I mentioned the Betacam and others in this video as well as the first camera with a CCD sensor they used in the X-C1. I wasn't necessarily trying to recreate the entire timeline of CCD also noted in the video that this wasn't the beginning of CCD sensor history with sony and it's a topic we'd come back to at another time. We could spend all day talking about the various cameras Sony released around this time.
The legendary Attack of the Clones…the best movie ever made.
Technicly Lucas was not the first to shoot an entire movie digitaly with Sony Cine Alta, actualy French director Pitof do a Vidocq movie in 2001 and some italian TV production also use it, that was the real test that convince lucas film team to use the second generation of the Cine alta.
My French friends on Discord have let me know about this 😂 technically, from what I've heard, they were the first to get the movie out but Lucas filmed with digital first. But I could be wrong. A lot of various people claiming credit at this time
@@FrameVoyager hi definition was a very old process too... check MUSE Hi Vision or Sony HDVS they broadcast an analog process to shoot and record HD since the late 80's, the youtube Channel Reely interesting have upload a lot of content in MUSE Hi Vision laserdisc and HDVS disc, it's stunning also some old live évent like toto live in montreux 1991 was shot with the process.
@@Meteotrance interesting 🤔 it's crazy how complex everything used to be. So privileged to be able to just hook up a hard drive to a camera now 😅
28 Days Later was digital too.
Who said they had to re record all of the dialog because of the camera? A) why when they would record principle sound on a separate device and B) they didn't know they had a sound issue until after they finished principle photography?
Right? I thought it’d have had waaay more to do with how noisy sci-fi sets are. That’s a whole lotta wood and plastic those actors are tromping around on.
The actors said it. More details here
www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a40090224/ewan-mcgregor-the-attack-of-the-clones-adr-dialogue/#:~:text=Apparently%2C%20Attack%20of%20the%20Clones,couldn't%20change%20the%20lenses.
@@FrameVoyager So in this somewhat sketchy story, we blame the new digital camera for a constant sound (that is the same frequency as a voice) that is coming from Video Village and subsequently ruins all dialog recordings? And it takes until the end of the production (instead of during say, I dunno, the first time cans were put on or the first room tone recorded, or in the several dailies sessions screened by incredibly smart and talented people and no one noticed? I gotta call BS. And the only one to report this is an actor? Did Jar Jar maybe need help with its lines?
@@robwillox7033 pretty much why I didn't want to get into it. Just not enough info given about it
90% of today’s cinema is built on the back of George Lucas’ vision. We’re lucky to reap the benefits of his imagination and trailblazing.
While working with film may have been way harder, it looked demonstrably *BETTER* for another decade or more. Looking back the 90's with its digital effects on practical models all shot on film is widely regarded as the pinnacle of VFX. Lucas' best work was always when he had constraints and film is a constraint.
No mention of Vidocq? A first fully digitally shot motion picture released before AOTC.
Technically, attack of the clones was shot first. That one was the first released
Thank you so much, man for putting all this information together for all of us. I’m here just learning and catching up with history and knowledge 🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏
No problem! Been a fun series to develop!
Oh come on too much giving Lucas the credit!
😂 everyone trying to take credit in this era lol. I'll circle back on Lucas on another series 😉
All my youtube suggestions are abandoned cameras and Star-Wars related videos... now this came out. 🤔🤨
WE'RE ALWAYS WATCHING 👀👀👀
@@FrameVoyager Palpatine ? Is that you ???
I feel assaulted by that unwanted clip from Rise of Skywalker and am considering legal action.
Fast forward to today and feature films are shot almost exclusively on Arri cameras in 1080.
Technically, there was ONE scene from Phantom Menace that was shot digitally (the midichlorian scene) but the camera actually shot at 30 frames per second, so Lucas actually requested to the manufacturers to build a camera that would shoot at 24 for his next film.
Yep! They had to go back and do a couple of reshoots or something. I think I had a clip of Lucas in this mentioning that and that it matched so well with the film and no one noticed.
@@FrameVoyager No one noticed back then. You can clearly tell where's the blue screen and it looks less sharp now. In the theatre you are immersed in the story and back then you were watching a print of a print of a print in your local theatre so all the differences you could see in the real first generation comparison were gone by the time it reached you. Now, today, with the Blu Rays you are getting first generation footage for both the film and the digital bits and you notice it (I don't mention Disney+ because there's the compression and variable bitrate of streaming).
I think back then George didn't realize that Star Wars is so beloved that it's not just about the audience that watches it first in theatres, but also about the preservation and future proofing of the material.
I've heard experts mention this for most films shot today digitally. That they are working with smaller usable color spaces and resolutions than what you can extract out of a film negative + the conservation of a digital file is a problem because formats, codecs and footage are a big question mark for future use of the material.
@@Jorge_Ambruster I did notice it back then and guessed that was the scene shot in HD. I still would've thought that particular scene was of a slightly "lower quality" even if I was unaware of a scene being shot in HD.
I remember with Revenge of the Sith came out there was an article in the newspaper about it being shot on digital and to see it properly you had to go to a cinema with a digital projector. So I had to drive into a fringe city suburb 30mins away to see it in its fully digital glory.
The next movie to create that intrigue for me was the Hobbit trilogy which was shot in 48 fps. The first one looked too much like a tv show but the later 2 instalments had warmer colour grading so wasn’t super noticeable.
Why did they have to rerecord dialogues? Because they fully relied on in-camera audio recording?
And they were super loud cameras supposedly. Not a ton of reliable info on that particular story as it's just now been talked about for some reason
Ah so it wasn't abandoned, just discontinued; those words have very different meanings. I liked the video overall but don't like being deceived, disliked.
Glad you liked it! Sorry you felt deceived but that's the question the series asks in all the videos and even still feel like this is light clickbait compared to most of UA-cam because it offers content that you said you enjoyed just with the technicality. That's UA-cam
@@FrameVoyager
I get that, and I understand as a fellow content creator. I was a bit harsh in my initial comment and I'd like to apologize. I do think the name could be done differently, like having it just be the series name.
@@CrazyWeeMonkey appreciate that! And I've had a few people ask me about that. The hard thing is I A/B tested a lot of names for this series even "discontinued" and it just didn't perform well in the testing. So it's hard to change it when even the like rate is 97% and I've only had a few negative comments on it. If I had a more overwhelming negative response I'd definitely change it, but for the most part this has been one of my most liked series.
Really do appreciate the ideas though and for you reaching back out!
SONY we’re very involved in broadcast/pro camera and tape systems (betaSP, betaCam) long before
Misspoke on this. Was meaning more that they were not really in the film camera game or the movie industry until digital cameras started taking off.
@@FrameVoyager gotcha. Yeh makes sense!
@@FrameVoyager digibeta …
What an awesome camera (for what it meant for our industry... And the fact that it was my very first "digital cinema" camera)
Such a cool camera! It's awesome you got to work with it. I can only imagine how much of a pain it was 😂
@@FrameVoyager Not THAT much because when I was in cinema school (2008-2011) we shot fiction on film but docu/news on video and when I got to work with the F900 it was frankly like any Sony ENG camera. (more or less :p)
The real revolution for me was the RED ONE. (my last year in cinema school we were still shooting 35mm film BUT were trained on RED ONE and Alexa [and technically F23/35 but just from theorical standpoint, we never got to touch them lol])
Odd omission or oversight but Sony released the world’s first portable video camera, the Portapak, in 1967
Hmmmm... Yeah definitely an oversight on my part! Thanks for pointing that out!
@@FrameVoyager You have nice manners online. After combing through a few more of your thoughtful responses I saw your intent was to discuss Sony’s entry into cinema and not video. In that context all your points and historical groundwork make sense. Being deeply rooted in the “video” realm myself (and making a major distinction between video and cinema) your opening statement about “Sony not being a major player in the video realm until digital cameras came along” just through me off because of Sony literally starting the video revolution in 1967 and that being the sort of thing one learns in Video 101 at wacky performance/conceptual Art school. I now understand what you were saying and appreciate the content you craft 💯 🤓
@@FrameVoyager also, funny anecdote, a F900 was lent to my school in 2005 and I was one of a few lucky students chosen to make something with it. I totally dismissed it and felt standard definition was enough😂🤦🏻♂️ lol. I was using ancient computers and embracing retro tech and didn’t even have anything to properly experience the resolution. Those render times + storage requirements turned me off haha
@@1bit @1bit appreciate it! With this series I knew I'd get some slight details wrong or misspeak at some point 😅 hard not to! I appreciate those who let me know in a more constructive way than attacking my credibility! But I totally get the way I phrased that one section confusing what I meant to say so thanks for pointing it out!
And that's awesome that you had access to it. It's been interesting doing this series and hearing from people about them using these cameras or seeing discontinued ones at some store 😂
Shame the film wasn't abandoned with it!
The F-900 was the workhorse at my film school back in 2006 along with the XL-2. When I started in the industry a couple years later, shows were still using it and the HDCam SR variant.
Perhaps you can do one of these about the XL series of cameras from Canon or the DVX-100 series from Panasonic. Both game changers that brought 24p filmmaking to the masses.
Thanks for making great content!
I'll look into it!
The DVX100 for sure was a game changer in the indie world. An affordable cinema camera for the first time
Definitely adding a plug for the DVX100A!
Thank you for another great video❤️
No problem! Thanks for watching!
8:55 Even Twileks were better back then!
Right!!?
( ✧Д✧) YES!!
I thought it was abandoned like left outside somewhere.
It could be 👀👀👀
You are completely incorrect... Sony has a rich past of designing, making, and providing analogue tube cameras for Television broadcasts since the late 70s!
Need to pin this somewhere but I misspoke. I meant they were never really in the film camera industry and therefore never really in the movie industry fully until then. They were absolutely making cameras way before then 😅
@@FrameVoyager ah! that is a totally fair comment, sir! Sorry about the "completely incorrect" quip...
@@tekvax01 No you're good! I've had a few people mention this to me haha. Sometimes when I write the scripts I know what I'm talking about and don't think fully about how it sounds. So appreciate everyone pointing that out! Keeps me from doing it in other videos haha
George probably saw sony's early HD days in the late 80's. Theres alotta stuff now up on youtube shot, film style included, that were analog HD. Thats why this happened in the late 90's they simply digitized the analog HD they had with panavision and lucas. No one really bit so the format sat and waited for another decade till they made this partnership.
Alot like 4k. where its only really taken off in the 2020's.
Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (digital) look like absolute ASS compared to the Phantom Menace (35mm)
Digital cameras, especially in the early 2000s, were complete garbage for filmmaking.
8:34
Why was it forgotten?
Digital rot. Thats why.
More than likely yes
Maybe this abandoned camera actually has the good version of Attack of The Clones that's still in it .
These early digital cameras will forever make the 2nd and 3rd Star Wars prequels look like a TV show.
When I was a kid I would have given my legs and arms to get my hand on Camcorder.
Wouldn't that have rather defeated the purpose as you wouldn't have been able to hold or operate a camera? Or walk to the location?
1st Sony with George Lucas did big move to DIGITAL,then to move from 1080 to 2k-4k The RED brand did a big ACTION,but you must know they as RED lied about own sensors,They bought and buying it from FORZA company,,,and after 15 years their 28K legend did not come TRUE,because it is not possible with current technology WHEN IMAX give us only 12K,which is the BEST of MARKET,,,but their pressure to market and consumers tendancy caused ARRI went to create a MIRACLE named ALEXA....
Pros: He helped with the creation of digital cameras for making movies cheaper and more accessible for the poor and for the rich but lazy filmmakers. It had to happen eventually.
Cons: George clearly was thinking on pulling the trick at that particular moment and he wasn't thinking on posterity, now that 1080i looks like garbage, unlike his previous movies that were shot on film that still look like movies at the current 4k resolution standards, and will continue looking as such as time goes by, because real film is real film. He should had DEVELOPED THE CAMERA FOR TV, and kept the 35mm for STAR WARS. Because you know, specially you who are into movie production, that the image of Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith is technically and aesthetically INFERIOR compared to the other Star Wars movies that were shot on film. You know it, and the undeniable importance of the existence of that camera, that had to exist, yes, thanks George and Sony, won't make the final product quality any better. It wasn't ready for cinema. And when you have the option of using the real thing or use something else with the intention of making it look like the real thing. USE the REAL Thing! Don't be lazy. Would you shoot on 1080i today? I doubt it, and the reason why you wouldn't shoot on 1080i today is the same reason why I don't liked this cameras. They were not ready for movies.
It almost destroyed the Star Wars franchise.... What was he thinking, It looked CRAP. I still think Film always outshines digital even today's ALEXA 35... And don't forget all major films shot on ALEXA's or other Digital are transposed to film and then re-digitised. I think that saids it all.
The first season of SKINS was shot on this camera or a very similar one. it looks so good, too bad there is no HD master of that season
Good video sharing. Thank
Glad you enjoyed it!
bruh, Sony also abandoned their first 4k cinema projector. The cinema I work at still has 2 units right now, no one wants it, no one can fix them if something goes wrong with them, they are basically just a pair of paperweights. It is not a bad system, ahead of its time tbh, but it is a complicated system with a lot of proprietary and expensive parts. My boss almost purchased 500 units back then, lucky someone talked him back to try 10 units first
3:20 you're ignoring that sony also had professional ENG cameras, they weren't *just* doing handycams like you make it out to have been. Heard of Betamax? Yeah, it wasn't just a consumer video format, in fact, least of all it was a consumer video format
Lucas always pushed the envelope.
I bought a panasonic dvx100b and shot some home footage. It's a standard definition dv cam and everyone I show the tapes to are blown away with how real it looks. I don't know why this is but something tells me that we have become so use to seeing 4k and 8k footage that our brains can relate extremely unreal detail to what's more natural. To be honest when I look at a 4k tv my eyes hurt after 10 mins it's so much to take in all at once. I grew up on tube TVs and watched the progression over the years and I miss the old TVs. Mario 64 on a flat screen plasma screen looks like trash same game on a tube TV looks smooth.
Just a great grandpa of the 4K camera in your 5 ounce smartphone.
They had to reshoot ALL of the audio? That sounds impossible.
Lucas also abandoned his experimental short films he murmured about as he left the big biz.
I'm a fan and i appreciate George but this camera was supposed to be used for news footage. Episode II ended up looking like shit because he shot on it.
Damned Amazing. Heroes of the Revolution.
Pretty crazy transition! Would have been crazy to be there for all of that
@@FrameVoyager Hollywood / Feature Film making has always gotten the elite of technology. Just look at the budget and the prestige! And the competition to get close.
Say what you want about his ideas for the prequels, but George Lucas will always be the father of digital cinema.
I can't remember specifically, but I also recall this movie (or episode III), George wanted movie theaters to invest in to DigiBeta machines instead of film so that they can have the best quality video quality in theaters. He wanted 4:4:4 color but given the fact that DigiBeta machines were so expensive, it wasn't feasible.
That would be episode 3 where he was able to film in 4:4:4!
@@FrameVoyager Aah, right. Thank you! Yeah, I remember my father telling me that but I never myself looked up the information on that.
@@lfmssoundman I only know because I saw it in my research for this video haha
It would bother me more that Attack of the Clones was only shot in 1080p but the movie is really bad.
what cables did you use on your camera to see her image? how can i see her picture? do i have to have an sdi monitor? do i have to use the three side connections and connect to an sdi monitor? I have a sony hdw f900 cinetalta camera
I need to dig up my old Sony Handicam its somewhere.
Superseded doesn't mean abandoned though. Apple didn't 'abandon' the iPhone 12 when they made the 13...