Polavision was an instant movie film that was encased in a plastic box and could only be played back on the special Polavision viewer. The Polavision system was developed by Polaroid, and was placed on the market in 1977. 

The first time that I heard of this product was a few days ago. It is not surprising that I never heard of it, the product lasted only a few years. In my humble opinion, it was a poor product. The idea was great, the implementation of the idea was bad, plus the fact that it was marketed at the same time that Betamax video recorders came out.

The camera and viewer system cost under $550.

Posted below is a Sears catalog page for the Polavision system.



Ed McMahon & Danny Kaye made TV commercials for Polavision, which I have posted below.


 

An original owner of a Polavision camera system, has posted a video that he made in the late 70s. The video is quite ironic, the young man created a film that showcased the restoration of his Model T Ford and was meant to record an important 1970s event. The degradation of the Polavision film looks like it was created in 1915.

The degrading of the film was one of the many problems that Polavision had.




The Polavision system can be seen as Edwin Land's Waterloo. Edwin Land was the founder of the company and had to step down as CEO and a short time later was forced out of the company. In my opinion, Polaroid was a great company that had blinders on. The same thing could be said about Edwin Land. Everything they made was a film-based product. The problem was - the market was moving away from film.








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