Aaton Digital

Aaton Digital (formerly known as Aaton) was a French motion picture equipment manufacturer, based in Grenoble, France.

Aaton was founded by Eclair engineer Jean-Pierre Beauviala, whose efforts have been primarily focused on making quiet, portable motion picture hardware suitable for impromptu field use, such as for documentaries. A model for all motion picture cameras they have produced is the "cat-on-the-shoulder", a small, light, quiet motion picture camera.

In the late 60's Beauviala was working as a professor of electronics in the University of Grenoble. With the project to make a movie about the evolution of the city and of its architecture, but unable to find the proper tools, Beauviala decided to create the camera himself. Though the movie would eventually be abandoned this led to the creation of Aaton in 1971.

After several initial prototypes, the Aaton LTR 16 mm movie camera became available on the market in the late 1970s. It has been succeeded by several improved models, including the LTR, LTR 54, XTR, X0, XTRplus, and XTRProd.

Aaton also pioneered the linking of timecode between film cameras and sound recorders in the acquisition stage. Aatoncode was one of the earliest schemes for encoding a timecode signal in the frame margins of 16mm film, allowing rigorous synchronization of audio and film in post-production.

As of January 2015, the camera line offers the 16mm Xterà (along with its still used predecessors the XTR Prod), the A-Minima (a small camcorder-sized 16mm camera) and the 35mm Penelope (along with the still in use 35-III).

In 2004 Aaton introduced the Cantar-X, a multichannel digital audio recorder designed to be used on location.

In 2005/2006, the company started to test and exhibit the successor to the 35‑III, a quiet 35mm camera called Penelope. Specially designed with a native 2-perf camera system (with an optional kit to switch to 3-Perf), the Penelope eventually became available for purchase in October 2008.