Selenophon light and sound image company

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Selenophon Licht- und Tonbildgesellschaft was an Austrian manufacturer of sound film recorders and playback devices founded in 1929 , as well as a film company based in Vienna . After the world market leaders in sound film apparatus, Western Electric and Küchenmeister-Tobis-Klangfilm , had divided the world market among themselves in the “ Pariser Tonfilmfrieden ” in 1930, the state-supported Selenophon could only continue to operate, at least in Austria, because of a special agreement. After Austria was annexed to Germany in 1938, the company was taken over by the National Socialistsdissolved, the patent holder expropriated .

history

The founders of the company and inventor of the Selenophon process were the physicist Hans Thirring and the then General Director of Radio Verkehrs AG (RAVAG) and board member of the World Radio Association Oskar Czeija . It was also he who took care of the production of the copy paper, and for this purpose applied for several patents and founded the Czeija-KG-Azophor-Lichtpauspapiere . From the summer of 1929 onwards, the company produced the first independent sound film production in Austria . Since then, devices for sound film production and playback have been sold.

The Selenophon-Licht- und Tonbildgesellschaft registered a number of other patents for sound film production and reproduction in the following years . Including inventions with the designations "Sound film tape method and device for its recording", "Device for the photographic recording of alternating currents", "Test device on recording devices of sound films", "Arrangement for the uninterrupted playback of several sound recordings running next to each other on tapes" and "Device for Recording and playback of sound films ”.

From 1931 to 1933 an international newsreel was published which was produced in co-production by the “Selenophon-Licht- und Tonbildgesellschaft” with Gustav Mayer from the “Hugo Engel” company. This had to assert itself against strong foreign competition. That changed, however, in 1933 with the start of the Austrian corporate state, when Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss launched the newsreel “Austria in Picture and Sound”. This Austrofascist propaganda instrument had to be produced by the Selenophon and had to be shown in the cinema program throughout Austria.

Although the two world market leaders and competitors on the sound film market, Western Electric and Küchenmeister-Tobis-Klangfilm, agreed in 1930 in the " Paris Sound Film Peace " on a division of the world market among themselves and a rigorous procedure against unfair competition and patent infringements, Selenophon also made feature films until 1932 here. In doing so, she risked licensing lawsuits , since most cinemas were equipped with devices from the two top dogs, and they only accepted that films are also produced using the same company's sound processes. On June 20, 1932, however, the Selenophon was able to conclude an agreement with the Küchenmeister-Tobis-Klangfilm, not least due to the good contacts with Austrian politics. Until the connection to Germany the Selenophon also received funding from the respective Austrian governments.

The agreement with Küchenmeister-Tobis-Klangfilm also provided for inclusion in the Paris Sound Film Peace, which protected Selenophon's patents and license rights worldwide. The division of the Austrian market was also regulated: “Full-length feature films are produced in Austria by the Tobis-Klangfilm group. Selenophon has the right to produce unrestricted full-length feature films in-house and to produce three full-length commissioned feature films per year. Both groups are entitled to unlimited production in the field of cultural films. In the future, however, short films of all kinds, dubbing of short films, dubbing of silent films of any length, teaching, advertising and propaganda films in Austria will be shot exclusively on equipment from the Selenophone Society. "

Selenophon had therefore divided the Austrian sound film market together with Tobis-Sascha -Film, a subsidiary of Küchenmeister-Tobis-Klangfilm. The company came to an end when it was dissolved by the National Socialist regime in March 1938. Company owner Oskar Czeija was forced to transfer all rights in possession of the "Selenophon" to the Tobis Tonbild Syndicate, which was owned by the National Socialist Cautio Treuhand , at a price of one Reichsmark per patent .

The first synchronization option (dubbing) in Austria was introduced in Vienna by the Selenophon in 1937.

Selenophone sound process

The Selenophon process for sound films patented by the company was based on research by the Wiener Selen-Studiengesellschaft from the 1920s and was a forerunner of the magnetic sound process . The sound was recorded using light on photosensitive paper. The quality of the devices called "U 7" was so good that the conductor Arturo Toscanini did not have the Salzburg Festival recorded on record , but only on tapes on the Selenophon. Even the major US broadcasters, CBS and NBC , used selenophone tapes.

The Thirring selenium cell showed a higher sensitivity in the lower pitches compared to the alkali photocell . On the other hand, the sensitivity in higher pitches was higher with alkali photocells. The advantage of the Selenophon tone method over the other tone methods was that it managed with less amplification. The sound quality was better because there was no risk of sound distortion, which can occur if the gain is too high. In addition, cheaper and safer positive material could be used instead of negative material for recording , since the sound recording was carried out on a separate film strip. In order to play films made using the Selenophone sound process, a separate device was required that could play both film tapes, image and sound, synchronously. This in turn offered the advantage of being able to use more dynamic shades of speech and music, since there was more space for the sound recordings on a separate film tape for the sound.

Movies

Selection of sound films using the Selenophon process:

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ S. Walter Fischer: Technical. In: L'Estrange Fawcett: The world of film. Amalthea-Verlag, Zurich, Leipzig, Vienna 1928, pp. 210–211