CineAlta

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Sony's CineAlta 24P HD (high definition video) Cameras are a series of professional digital video cameras that offer many of the same features of a 35mm motion picture film camera.

1 Concept
2 Format
3 History and use in motion pictures
4 List of CineAlta Cameras
5 The Future of CineAlta
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] Concept

CineAlta is a brand name used by Sony to describe various products involved in content creation, production and exhibition process within digital cinema workflow. Now Sony's products branded by CineAlta include camera, camcorder, recorder, cinema server and projector.

[edit] Format

CineAlta cameras record onto HDCAM tapes, XDCAM Professional Discs or SxS flash memory cards. They have the ability to shoot at various frame rates including 24fps and have a resolution of up to 1920 by 1080 pixels.

[edit] History and use in motion pictures

In 2000 George Lucas announced that Episode II of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy would be the first major motion picture to be shot 100% digitally. Sony and Panavision had teamed up to develop the High Definition 24P camera that Lucas would use to accomplish this and thus the first CineAlta camera was born: the Sony HDW-F900 (also called the Panavision HD-900F after being "panavised").

For Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith the more advanced Sony HDC-950 was used, with higher resolution and better color reproduction than its predecessor. The film was cropped to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio from its native 16:9 frame. As a result only 817 of the 1080 vertical pixels were actually used; but there is an anamorphic adaptor lens from Canon, which allows shooting in 2.35:1 without losing any pixels. Manuel Huerga's Salvador is the first movie shot with this adaptor.

Russian Ark was recorded in uncompressed high definition video using a Sony HDW-F900. The information was recorded uncompressed onto a hard disk which could hold 100 minutes, thus allowing the entire film to be shot in a single 90 minute take. Four attempts were made to complete the shot; the first three had to be interrupted due to technical faults, but the fourth attempt was completed successfully. Extra material on the DVD release includes a documentary on the technology used.

Other notable movies that were shot with CineAlta cameras include:

[edit] List of CineAlta Cameras

[edit] The Future of CineAlta

In addition to F23, Sony has revealed some basic features of F35, a Sony version of Panavision's Genesis, which was equipped with a single S35 size CCD and PL lens mount. F35 is said to be available worldwide in the late fall of 2008 at a system price, not including lens, in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars.

Besides, Sony has also announced that Cinealta 4K, a 4K production suite including a 4K digital cinema camera and recorder, is being developed. The results are still a few years in coming.