Sony's CineAlta 24P HD cameras

1. CineAlta
SONY CINEALTA Filming with a CineAlta video
Sony's CineAlta 24P HD cameras are a series of professional digital
video cameras that offer many of the same features
of 35mm motion picture cameras.
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.
Format
CineAlta cameras record onto HDCAM tapes, XDCAM Professional
Discs, SRMemory, or SxS flash memory cards. They have the
ability to shoot at various frame rates including 24fps and a
resolution of up to 4K.

2. History and use in motion pictures
In June 1999, 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").
However, the science-fiction film Vidocq was actually the first
released feature that was shot entirely with digital cinematography.
For Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith the more advanced
Sony HDC-F950 was used, with higher resolution and better color
reproduction than its predecessor. The film was cropped to a 2.40:1
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 99 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.
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