Vitaphone

Vitaphone was a nearly 2,000 short films from Warner Bros. Entertainment -used sound film process . The characteristics were: image recording with a classic camera , such as Bell & Howell Standard including an electric motor, sound recording on a wax plate. The frame rate is 24 frames per second. During playback, a classic projector and a mechanically driven turntable are rigidly coupled to each other, with the 17- inch diameter (around 43 cm) records being scanned from the inside out at 33⅓ revolutions per minute. One film act of a maximum length of 1000 feet (around 300 m) runs synchronously with the associated plate. The average runtime of the act and the record is 11 minutes. The film plates are only recorded on one side and have an arrow pressed in at the beginning of the groove. The projectionists can place the stylus exactly on the arrowhead while the film copy has copied in a start image that comes to stand in front of the image window.

(Vitaphone was available to the film industry from 1924. Short films with advertising character were initially made before Warner Bros. produced the first full-length film with the system. Don Juan and The Jazz Singer have to be treated with caution to this day if one has to expect them that they are played back at 24 or 25 frames per second. Al Jolson's high-pitched voice should be noticed when watching The Jazz Singer on TV or on video ).

literature

• Harald Jossé: The making of the sound film. Alber, Freiburg and Munich, 1984