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Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected. Some sources say that DeForest improved on the work of Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt — who was granted German patent 309.536 on 28 July 1914 for his sound-on-film work — and on the Tri-Ergon Exchange, patented in 1919 by German inventors Josef Engl, Hans Vogt, and Joseph Massole. The Phonofilm system, which recorded synchronized sound directly onto film, was used to record vaudeville acts, musical numbers, political speeches, and opera singers. The quality of Phonofilm was poor at first, improved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee De Forest
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element "Audion" triode vacuum tube in 1906. This started the Electronic Age, and enabled the development of the electronic amplifier and oscillator. These made radio broadcasting and long distance telephone lines possible, and led to the development of talking motion pictures, among countless other applications. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career— he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. Despite this, he was recognised for his pioneering work with the 1922 IEEE Medal of Honor, the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal and the 1946 American Institute of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Sound
Optical sound is a means of storing sound recordings on transparent film. Originally developed for military purposes, the technology first saw widespread use in the 1920s as a sound-on-film format for motion pictures. Optical sound eventually superseded all other sound film technologies until the advent of digital sound became the standard in cinema projection booths. Optical sound has also been used for multitrack recording and for creating effects in some musical synthesizers. 1914-1921: Naval and military use Building on the principle first demonstrated by the Photophone of Alexander Graham Bell in 1880, optical sound was developed by several inventors with an interest in wireless communication through transmission of light, primarily for ship-to-ship use. The idea was that sound pulses could be converted into light pulses, beamed out from one ship and picked up by another, where the light pulses would then be reconverted into sound. A pioneer in this technology was Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movietone Sound System
The Movietone sound system is an optical sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures. The initial version was capable of a frequency response of 8500 Hz. Although sound films today use variable-area tracks, any modern motion picture theater (excluding those that have transitioned to digital cinema) can play a Movietone film without modification to the projector (though if the projector's sound unit has been fitted with red LED or laser light sources, the reproduction quality from a variable density track will be significantly impaired). Movietone was one of four motion picture sound systems under development in the U.S. during the 1920s, the others being DeForest Phonofilm, Warner Brothers' Vitaphone, and RCA Photophone, though Phonofilm was primarily an early version of Movietone. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodore Case
Theodore Willard Case (December 12, 1888 – May 13, 1944) was an American chemist and inventor known for the invention of the Movietone sound-on-film system. Early life and education Theodore Willard Case was born in 1888 in Auburn, New York to Willard Erastus Case (1857 – 1918) and Eva Fidelia Caldwell Case (1857 – 1952). He attended a few boarding schools as a young man including The Manlius School near Syracuse, New York and Cloyne House School in Newport, Rhode Island He also attended the St. Paul School in Concord, New Hampshire to finish out his secondary education. Following his high school graduation he attended Yale University from 1908 to 1912, where he earned his B.A in Chemistry. He then attended Harvard University where he studied law. He did not find this as fulfilling as pursuing science so he left after about a year. During the years prior to opening the Case Research Lab he worked with his father in laboratories setup in the basements of their fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically in diameter, would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected. It had a frequency response of 4300 Hz. Many early talkies, such as ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound". The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs. Early history In the early 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track, and may record the signal either optically or magnetically. Earlier technologies were sound-on-disc, meaning the film's soundtrack would be on a separate phonograph record. History Sound on film can be dated back to the early 1880s, when Charles E. Fritts filed a patent claiming the idea. In 1923 a patent was filed by E. E. Ries, for a variable density soundtrack recording, which was submitted to the SMPE (now SMPTE), which used the mercury vapor lamp as a modulating device to create a variable-density soundtrack. Later, Case Laboratories and Lee De Forest attempted to commercialize this process, when they developed an Aeolite glow lamp, which was deployed at Movietone Newsreel at the Roxy Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an optical sound, "variable-area" film exposure system, in which the modulated area (width) corresponded to the waveform of the audio signal. The three other major technologies were the Warner Bros. Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, as well as two "variable-density" sound-on-film systems, Lee De Forest's Phonofilm, and Fox- Case's Movietone. When Joseph P. Kennedy and other investors merged Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) with the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Radio Corporation of America, the resulting movie studio RKO Radio Pictures used RCA Photophone as their primary sound system. In March 1929, RKO released ''Syncopation'', the first film made in RCA Photophone. History and licensing In the early years following World War I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tri-Ergon
The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was developed from around 1919 by three German inventors, Josef Engl (1893–1942), Joseph Massolle (1889–1957), and Hans Vogt (1890–1979). The system used a photoelectric recording method and a non-standard film size (42mm) which incorporated the sound track with stock 35mm film. With a Swiss backer, the inventors formed Tri-Ergon AG in Zurich, and tried to interest the market with their invention. Ufa acquired the German sound film rights for the Tri-Ergon process in 1925, but dropped the system when the public showing of their first sound film suffered technical failures. The Tri-Ergon system appeared at a time when a number of other sound film processes were arriving on the market, and the company soon merged with a number of competitors to form the Tobis syndicate in 1928, joined by the Klangfilm AG syndicate in 1929 and renamed as Tobis-Klangfilm by 1930. While Tri-Ergon became the dominant sound film process in Germany and much of E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, this "Apostle of Pep" was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing anecdotes about his wife Ida and five daughters. Some of his hits include "Makin' Whoopee", "Ida (Sweet as Apple Cider)", " If You Knew Susie", "Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me", “ Mandy”, " My Baby Just Cares for Me”, "Margie", and " How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" He also wrote a few songs, including " Merrily We Roll Along", the ''Merrie Melodies'' Warner Bros. cartoon theme. His eye-rolling song-and-dance routines eventually led to his nickname "Banjo Eyes". In 1933, artist Frederick J. Garner caricatured Cantor with large round eyes resembling the drum-l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Tigerstedt
Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt (August 14, 1887 – April 20, 1925) was one of the most significant inventors in Finland at the beginning of the 20th century and has been called the "Thomas Edison of Finland". He was a pioneer of sound-on-film technology and made significant improvements to the amplification capacity of the vacuum valve. Having seen a showing of the Lumière brothers' new motion picture technology as a 9-year-old boy in Helsinki in 1896, he was inspired to bring sound to silent pictures. Many years later, in 1914, his demonstration film ''Word and Picture'' was presented to a gathering of scientific dignitaries in Berlin, but his invention was never commercialized. In addition to improving the triode vacuum valve, he developed directional loudspeakers. Tigerstedt also predicted such future inventions as television and he invented the mobile phone, for which he in 1917 successfully filed a patent. The patent was granted to Tigerstedt for what he described a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phil Baker (comedian)
Phil Baker (August 26, 1896 – November 30, 1963) was an American comedian and emcee on radio. Baker was also a vaudeville actor, composer, songwriter, accordionist and author. Biography He was born on August 26, 1896, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Baker went to school in Boston, and his first stage appearance was in a Boston amateur show. Baker began in vaudeville playing the piano for violinist Ed Janis, and he was 19 when he teamed with Ben Bernie for the vaudeville act "Bernie and Baker." This originally was a serious musical act with Baker on accordion and Bernie on violin but eventually ended up with comic elements. After breaking with Bernie shortly after World War I, Baker partnered with Sid Silvers up until 1928. Baker went on to pursue a successful solo career. His solo act included him singing, playing the accordion, telling jokes and being heckled by a planted audience member called Jojo. With this act, Baker played the Palace Theatre in 1930 and 1931. In 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtiss JN-4
The Curtiss JN "Jenny" was a series of biplanes built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, New York, later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Although the Curtiss JN series was originally produced as a training aircraft for the US Army, the "Jenny" (the common nickname derived from "JN") continued after World War I as a civil aircraft, as it became the "backbone of American postwar ivilaviation". Thousands of surplus Jennys were sold at bargain prices to private owners in the years after the war and became central to the barnstorming era that helped awaken the US to civil aviation through much of the 1920s. Design and development Curtiss combined the best features of the model J and model N trainers, built for the US Army and US Navy, and began producing the JN or "Jenny" series of aircraft in 1915. Curtiss built only a limited number of the JN-1 and JN-2 biplanes. The design was commissioned by Glenn Curtiss from Englishman Benjamin Douglas Thomas, formerl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
