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46-444: The pallophotophone was an optical sound system which could record and play back audio tracks on a strip of 35 mm black-and-white photographic film . Separate recording and playback units were employed. In recording, the sound waves vibrated a tiny mirror which reflected a ray of light through a narrow slit onto the moving film, creating a "sound track" that encoded the audio-frequency variations in air pressure as variations in

92-464: A film's projector was used on early talkies , such as their' 1927 hit The Jazz Singer (which was marketed as being " all singing " though the talking was sporadic, used in only several isolated sequences), utilised Vitaphone discs, but by 1931, optical sound-on-film would supplant the separate sound-on-disc technology. After the war, Theodore Case and Earl I. Sponable collaborated with fellow wireless communications pioneer Lee de Forest , inventor of

138-476: A movie theater. After General Electric's Pallophotophone fell out of use in the early 1930s, optical multi-track recording did not have a resurgence for nearly three decades when high fidelity and stereophonic recordings became available commercially. Walt Disney made an attempt in 1940 when he began sound production for Fantasia with the Philadelphia Orchestra . Disney set up 33 microphones at

184-439: A processor which converts the photovoltaic impulse into an electrical signal that is then amplified and converted into analogue sound waves through a speaker. Three types of optical sound-on-film technology emerged in the 1920s: Phonofilm, Photophone and Movietone. A fourth major contender for the sound film market - Warner Brothers ' Vitaphone sound-on-disc system which synchronized large-size (16") phonographic records with

230-476: A second lens-less "sound camera" served as an optical recorder which was mechanically interlocked with the picture. Fox continued making Movietone Newsreels with single-system cameras due to their ease of mobility. For half a century, cinema sound systems were licensed to either RCA or Western Electric, and motion picture producers elected to license one or the other, or even both. This continued until 1976, by which time optical sound recording had been converted to

276-408: A speech for broadcast on Christmas Eve. In 1923, celebrities including Thomas Edison , Pope Pius XI , General Pershing and child star Jackie Coogan made pallophotophone recordings for later playback over the air. Although the audio quality was reportedly as good as a live broadcast and the system was otherwise a technological success, these uses were experimental and the system was never adopted by

322-477: A time in separate passes through the device, simply made much more economical use of the medium by multiplying the total recording time possible on a given length of 35 mm film running at a given speed. During a brief period shortly after its creation, the pallophotophone system was occasionally put to practical use in radio broadcasting. On December 13, 1922, then-Vice President Calvin Coolidge used it to record

368-607: Is Peter Gabak. Inside of the museum is the Suits-Bueche Planetarium. It contains a GOTO Chronos Star Machine, one of only 16 in the United States, which is capable of displaying 8,500 stars and 24 constellation outlines. The projector can show the sky from any location on Earth 100,000 years in the past or in the future. Also located at miSci is a Challenger Learning Center (CLC), which opened in 2014. The archives contain over 1.5 million photographs , making them

414-614: The Academy of Music and ran these into eight independently operated mixing stations. The eight tracks were then recorded optically onto 35mm film, with a ninth track adding tempo for Disney's artists to synchronize their animation to the soundtrack. Disney later mixed these nine tracks down to four for use with the Fantasound system that toured with the film to select theaters in 1941. As an early cinematic surround sound system, Disney had to refit each theatre with special Fantasound equipment that

460-646: The Audion tube , to apply their optical sound system to motion pictures. De Forest had been granted general patents for a sound-on-film process in 1919, though it was the Case Research Lab's inventions which made de Forest's systems workable. Case Lab first converted an old silent-film projector into a recording device in 1922, using the projector's light for exposing a soundtrack onto film. The process (which de Forest called Phonofilm ) recorded sound as parallel lines of variable shades of gray, photographically transcribing

506-754: The John Barrymore film Don Juan . One month later, the Phonofilm Company filed for bankruptcy . Case and Sponable went on to implement their optical sound-on-film innovations as the Movietone sound system , and the UK rights to Phonofilm were bought up by theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger, who used the technology to release short films of British music hall performers through 1929. While Lee de Forest struggled to market Phonofilm, Charles A. Hoxie's Pallophotophone had success as an optical recording device through

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552-473: 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

598-558: The Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium ) is a museum and planetarium located in Schenectady, New York . miSci was founded in 1934 and its exhibitions and educational programming focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM). As of September 2023 , the museum's president is Gina C. Gould, PhD; Vice President of Collections and Exhibitions is Chris Hunter; and Director of Grants and Special Events

644-477: The Tri-Ergon corporation and researching the development of European sound film systems. There, he met Finnish inventor, Eric Tigerstedt ("Finland's Thomas Edison"), who improved Phonofilm's amplification system to be audible in a large theater. Phonofilm was used mainly to record stage performances, speeches, and musical acts in and around New York City, but Hollywood movie studios expressed little interest in

690-459: The incandescent light bulb . A resurgence in interest in the Optigan has led to a circuit of collectors trading program discs. Though originally marketed as a toy instrument , the Optigan was used by professional musicians to achieve unusual sounds, and the instrument made cameo appearances on recordings by Bruce Haack (1973), Alan Steward (1976), Steve Hackett (1980) and Devo (1981). In

736-602: The ' RCA Photophone '. The first demonstrations of the Photophone, were given in 1926, and in 1927 a sound version (music plus sound effects only) of the silent film Wings , toured to a dozen specially equipped theaters. While Hoxie's work found its way into national theaters through RCA, Theodore Case and Earl Sponable found a home with the Fox Film Corporation after leaving de Forest and Phonofilm. Case and Sponible's Movietone sound system made several modifications to

782-481: The 1990s the Optigan became popular as a vintage synthesizer, and samples of its sounds were released as digital software, making the sounds accessible to musicians not able to obtain the actual instrument. Since then, Optigan music has been used by numerous artists working in popular music, television, film, and is the featured instrument for the band Optiganally Yours. Schenectady Museum The Museum of Innovation and Science (stylized as miSci , and formerly

828-483: The Western Electric (dubbed "Westrex") stereo variable-area system. Due to film grain and possible dust on the sound track, optical sound could be noisy or have crackling sounds, especially when projecting worn release prints . In low-volume sections (where the noise would be especially noticeable) noise reduction was originally performed either by partly masking the track, or, in variable area recording, narrowing

874-427: The archives of the Schenectady Museum by curator Chris Hunter and John Schneiter, a former GE researcher and museum board member. The films were labeled "radio programs of 1929–1930” and had several unusual characteristics that were puzzling. Unlike normal 35 mm film , they did not have sprocket holes . Schneiter contacted his former colleague Russ DeMuth, a mechanical engineer at GE Global Research , to help decipher

920-488: The broadcasting industry. In 1925, the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company , maker of Brunswick phonograph records , licensed parts of GE's system for use in the electrical recording process it was developing. Instead of beaming the light onto photographic film, the vibrating mirror reflected it directly into a photoelectric cell, generating an electronic audio signal which was amplified and used to drive

966-431: The de facto speed for all sound films, whether sound-on-disc or sound-on-film. In 1926, Fox hired Sponible, bought Case's patents (they had already acquired Freeman Owens' and Tri-Ergon's), and mass-produced Case's Aeo-light for use in all Movietone News cameras from 1928 to 1939. These cameras recorded all Fox feature films during this period, beginning with F. W. Murnau 's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). As

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1012-597: The design of these single-system cameras, in which both sound and picture were recorded on the same negative. He approached Bell & Howell to modify one of their cameras for his design, but the results were unsatisfactory. Later, the Wall Camera Corporation rebuilt the machine with improved results. De Forest also worked with early newsreel maker, Freeman Harrison Owens , who by 1921, had developed his own patented sound camera, and spent time in Berlin working with

1058-542: The earlier Phonofilm system which they had helped create. One was moving the position of the projector's soundhead from above the picture head (as it had been in Phonofilm), to 14 + 1 ⁄ 2 inches (370 mm) below the picture head (close to the present-day standard). Case also adopted the 24 frames-per-second speed for Movietone, bringing it in line with the speed already chosen for Warner Brothers ' Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, establishing 24 frames-per-second as

1104-435: The early 1920s until the early 30s, GE broadcast over 1,000 Pallophotophone recordings from its Schenectady, New York radio station, WGY , including speeches by presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover , and inventor-businessmen Thomas Edison and Henry Ford . By the mid-1920s, GE adapted Hoxie's invention for motion picture sound playback, subsequently marketed as a commercial product by then-GE subsidiary RCA as

1150-501: The electrical waveforms from a microphone , which were translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected. Case Lab fine-tuned the process with an invention called the 'Aeo-light' for use in sound cameras. During filming, audio signals modulated the Aeo-light to expose the film's audio directly inside the camera, streamlining Phonofilm's process for synchronizing a motion picture with its soundtrack. In 1924, Sponable focused on

1196-457: The first professionally produced feature with an optical sound track, it included mostly music and sound effects, with a very few unsynchronized words. After 1931, Fox's feature film production moved to a two-machine system which Western Electric had developed from the RCA Photophone, with the advent of a light-valve invented by Edward C. Wente. In this system, one camera shot the frames, and

1242-479: The later 1920s and early 1930s, GE experimented with variations of the system and recorded many radio broadcasts from its Schenectady, New York radio station WGY . Unlike the first-generation recorder, in these variants the tiny mirror was not vibrated directly by sound waves, but by an electromagnetic audio signal originating from a conventional microphone. In 1927, GE publicly unveiled a variable-area sound-on-film motion picture sound system based on this method. It

1288-445: The material on surviving reels is an early seven-note version of the NBC chimes , a broadcast of a high school basketball match (believed to be the world's second-oldest recording of a sports broadcast), and a historic 1929 recording of the 82-year-old Thomas Edison , with Henry Ford and President Herbert Hoover , speaking on a broadcast commemorating the 50th anniversary of the invention of

1334-568: The mid-1970s. The Orchestron featured improved recorded sounds over the Optigan, though many professional musicians of note have performed and recorded using Mattel's toy version. Efforts have only recently been made to preserve early examples of optical sound. While none of GE's original Pallophotophones are known to exist, a few reels of Pallophotophone recordings of radio broadcasts have been found. Unlike movie film , these 35mm reels do not contain sprockets . New players have been built using modern components to recover audio from old reels. Among

1380-439: The mysterious films. Hunter, Schneiter and DeMuth studied the patents and photographs of the original pallophotophone and built a new player from scratch, using modern components, with which they were able to recover the audio from the reels. The material on the surviving reels included: Optical sound Optical sound is a means of storing sound recordings on transparent film. Originally developed for military purposes,

1426-456: The seventh largest collection of photographs in the US (not including the federal government). The archives also include 110 radios, 60 televisions, 15,000 patents, 5000 books, and 1000 films. Many of the items relate to the history of Schenectady and General Electric . The archives are open to the public by appointment. The Dudley Observatory , now affiliated with Siena College , was affiliated with

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1472-456: The side-to-side motions of the recording stylus as it engraved a spiral groove into the rotating wax master disc. Brunswick publicized its unique method as "Brunswick Light-Ray" recording. Used simply as a novel type of general-purpose microphone , this hollowed-out version of the pallophotophone proved to be very problematic. In 1927, Brunswick abandoned it in favor of the ordinary carbon and condenser microphones being used by its competitors. In

1518-466: The style of an electric chord organ or accordion . The Optigan came with a "Starter Set" of discs that featured standard instrument sounds and tempos. Other sounds were available through purchase of more disc packs. Mattel ceased production of the Optigan in 1976. The Orchestron was a version of the Optigan built by Vako Synthesizers Inc. Intended for professional use as an alternative to the Mellotron in

1564-461: The support of General Electric . The Pallophotophone utilized the entire width of unsprocketed 35mm Kodak monochrome film to record and replay multiple audio tracks. Unlike Phonofilm, this optical sound technology used a photoelectric process which captured audio wave forms generated by a vibrating mirror galvanometer , and was the first effective multitrack recording system, predating magnetic tape multitrack recorders by at least 20 years. From

1610-726: The system. Since the Hollywood studios controlled the major theater chains, de Forest showed his films in independent theaters in a short-form series, akin to vaudeville , which included Max and Dave Fleischer 's Song Car-Tunes . The Fleischers used the Phonofilm process for their animated shorts, which included the now-classic bouncing-ball gimmick. In 1924, Owens parted ways with de Forest, and Case followed suit in 1925, because of de Forest's taking sole credit for Phonofilm. In August 1926, Warner Brothers introduced their Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, developed by Western Electric , with

1656-427: 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 . Building on the principle first demonstrated by

1702-536: The width of the track. After the film was developed , each track could be played by running it between a slit illuminated by a steady light and a photoelectric cell , converting the variations in track width into variations of light intensity and a similarly modulated electrical signal, which was electronically amplified and used to drive a loudspeaker or other device. Surviving examples of pallophotophone recordings have several tracks recorded in parallel on each strip of film, and Hoxie's system has therefore been called

1748-431: The width of the transparent oscillations. Later, electronic noise reduction was used (e.g. analog Dolby A ). As digital sound became the standard of sound reproduction in the 21st century, 35 and 70mm films have increasingly included a digital version of the soundtrack on the edges of the film strip. Most films continue to be processed with both digital and analog soundtracks so they may be read by any projection systems in

1794-673: The work of Case and Sponable was Charles A. Hoxie 's Pallophotophone (from Greek roots meaning "shaking light sound"), manufactured by General Electric (GE). Similar to the Case infrared system used by the Navy, the Pallophotophone was also intended for wireless communications at sea, but was then adapted for recording speech. With GE's backing, Hoxie's invention was used in 1922–1923 to record then-Vice-president Calvin Coolidge and others for radio broadcasts. The early work by Case, Sponable and Hoxie

1840-469: The world's first multitrack recording system, as it predates magnetic tape multitrack recording by several decades. However, unlike later multitrack optical, magnetic, and digital sound recording systems, multiple tracks on pallophotophone films are not known to have been used for later mixdown or similar post-production purposes, or for simultaneously recording two or more channels for stereophonic sound reproduction. Multiple narrow tracks, recorded one at

1886-470: Was American physicist Theodore Case . While studying at Yale , Case became interested in using modulated light as a means of transmitting and recording speech. In 1914, he opened the Case Research Lab to experiment with the photoelectric properties of various materials, leading to the development of the Thallofide (short for thallium oxysulfide) Cell, a light-sensitive vacuum tube . The Thallofide tube

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1932-409: Was instrumental in the development of sound-on-film systems for motion pictures during the 1920s. Most of the inventions which led to optical sound-on-film technology employed the use of an electric lamp , called an 'exciter', shining through a translucent waveform printed on the edge of a film strip. When the light shines through the film, it is read by a photo-sensitive material and fed through

1978-531: Was later dismantled and put toward the war effort. In 1942 RKO Pictures remastered Fantasia for distribution with a monaural soundtrack. The film was remastered again for stereo in 1956 when moviehouses became equipped with duophonic sound systems. A few musical instruments have been manufactured using optical sound for playback. In 1971 toy manufacturer Mattel released the Optigan (short for " opti cal or gan ), an organ -like synthesizer whose sound library

2024-460: Was marketed by RCA (then a GE subsidiary) as RCA Photophone . In 1929, RKO Radio Pictures became the first motion picture studio to use Photophone exclusively. Western Electric later acquired the Photophone trademark. As far as is known, none of the original pallophotophone machines built by GE have survived to the present day, but some reels of pallophotophone recordings of radio broadcasts still exist. In 2008, thirteen reels were rediscovered in

2070-514: Was originally used by the United States Navy in a top secret ship-to-ship infrared signaling system developed at Case's lab with his assistant Earl Sponable. Case and Sponable's system was first tested off the shores of New Jersey in 1917, and attending the test was Thomas Edison , contracted by the Navy to evaluate new technologies. The test was a success, and the U.S. Navy used the system during and after World War I . Contemporary with

2116-464: Was stored on interchangeable 12" clear acetate "program discs". Each program disc was encoded with 57 concentric optical tracks that spun on a turntable inside the machine. The Optigan then translated the analog waveforms on each disc to an audio signal via an exciter lamp shone through the disc and onto a photoelectric cell. 37 of the program disc's tracks were single notes , and 21 featured chords in different keys and rhythm tracks much in

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