RWels
Member
Posts: 2,854
|
Post by RWels on May 1, 2021 18:47:22 GMT
No, it was somewhat shortlived, although the discs were still supplied for some time afterwards for theaters that had upgraded to disc sound but hadn't moved on yet. Today, some sound discs have no film anymore and vice versa. It looks bad if you see it in Singing in the rain, but the idea wasn't necessarily stupid. From the 1990s onward some movie theatres had "DTS" sound which was special audio CDs as well. They were synchronised by a signal on the film. I'm sure I read that the discs played from the centre out as with CDs DVDs etc, but that they had a short life and wore out long before the films did due to the heavy needle pressure. At least DTS solved the problems of wear and broken film spliced together thus losing frames causing loss of synchronization. I think they had boxes to tick on the label, and after show 10 (?) the disc was replaced.
|
|
Greg Glenn
Member
Carl Palmer art! Tank!
Posts: 55
|
Post by Greg Glenn on May 2, 2021 11:48:29 GMT
Early on, sound-on-disc was far superior to on-film in large theatres. You could get at least 20 good plays out of a Vitaphone soundtrack disc if it was properly handled, but yes the playback head was heavy. Most but not all were played inside / out. Discs were usually 16 inches in diameter but some were 12 inches. I’m not aware of any rotating at any speed other than 33.3 rpm. Hard to believe, but the latest known theatrically released sound-on-disc is from 1937.
|
|
|
Post by Paul Hayes on Jun 10, 2021 18:04:04 GMT
|
|
|
Post by richardwoods on Jun 11, 2021 14:41:22 GMT
Excellent read Paul, thanks!
|
|
|
Post by Paul Hayes on Jun 11, 2021 17:32:10 GMT
Many thanks, Richard - I'm glad you liked it!
|
|
|
Post by rebeccajansen on Jun 11, 2021 18:33:52 GMT
It should always be remembered, and apologies if the point has already been made, that like concert venue bills, television listings are published before an event actually transpires and said event scheduled may in reality not have happened as advertised for any number of reasons. People like to use pieces of paper (or digital versions of same) as solid proof when of course reality itself is three dimensional and not two dimensional.
I really enjoy descriptions (which is mostly all we have) of the early years of television in Europe and America. There are even dramatic aspects such as the BBC shutting down in 1939 during a Mickey Mouse cartoon and resuming in the 1940s with that same cartoon! Imagine someone in London waiting eight years and all they'd have survived through to get to seeing that cartoon finished!
The even earlier 1920s broadcast experiments are quite amazing to imagine, and the first few hobbyists out there able to afford their own receiver in those early days witnessing the firsts for many things. Britain was an admirable early pioneer of television although at first two versions of more mechanical (and vertical lines) system with Marconi proving to have developed a much more versatile system.
OT for the 1940s, but... does anyone know if there was a recording on disc of either an early British vertical line broadcast or the Marconi horizontal line received in New York? And if so where one might actually see something of it? I've never been able to find it... described as just a few seconds of someone before a camera in London.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Morris on Jun 11, 2021 19:12:31 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Paul Hayes on Jun 11, 2021 19:52:51 GMT
It should always be remembered, and apologies if the point has already been made, that like concert venue bills, television listings are published before an event actually transpires and said event scheduled may in reality not have happened as advertised for any number of reasons. People like to use pieces of paper (or digital versions of same) as solid proof when of course reality itself is three dimensional and not two dimensional. I really enjoy descriptions (which is mostly all we have) of the early years of television in Europe and America. There are even dramatic aspects such as the BBC shutting down in 1939 during a Mickey Mouse cartoon and resuming in the 1940s with that same cartoon! Imagine someone in London waiting eight years and all they'd have survived through to get to seeing that cartoon finished! I fear you're slightly a victim of your own point there, Rebecca! The "interrupted during Mickey Mouse" thing is a bit of a myth - it was shown in full, and I believe there were even some announcements after it. They did show it again on the first day back in 1946, though.
|
|
|
Post by rebeccajansen on Jun 13, 2021 0:34:26 GMT
Thanks, quite interesting to see this! I'm also glad to get the Mickey Mouse info corrected, now I wonder in which book I found it described it as being interrupted.
|
|
|
Post by richardwoods on Jun 13, 2021 4:37:04 GMT
Thanks, quite interesting to see this! I'm also glad to get the Mickey Mouse info corrected, now I wonder in which book I found it described it as being interrupted. I seem to remember reading that it’s a popular miss-conception that has grown out of the presenter on resumption of service in 1946 making a tongue in cheek comment “apologising for the interruption in service”, and then reshowing the Mickey Mouse cartoon.
|
|
|
Post by timmunton on Jun 14, 2021 15:04:47 GMT
Interesting stuff. I have the MM cartoons on DVD so interested to know which MM it was. Have just looked it up and it's "Mickey's Gala Premier" - made in 1933, released on July 1st that year. Its broadcasts by the BBC on the occasions under discussion were:
Friday 1st September 1939 from 12:05 to 12:13pm (followed by some test signals & then probably some announcements by Kay Cavendish - what the announcements made by her were, seems to be unknown)
- and then shown again on the first day when broadcasting resumed on:
Friday 7th June 1946, sometime between 3 and 4pm.
Strictly speaking it doesn't seem to be quite the 1st programme shown when the BBC resumed broadcasting on 7/6/46: After 2 introductory bits it seems that they then showed a ballet by Margot Fonteyn & then a talk with drawings by David Low. The Mickey Mouse cartoon then followed after these 2 programme elements.
Actually it's not impossible the MM was shown first but the webpage I read does quite strongly imply that the ballet & talk were shown before it. And of course the introductory bits definitely came before it - though I wouldn't personally count those introductions as programmes as such. Although it depends on how you define these things!
The webpage I looked at is at the official BBC website (part of its "History Of The BBC" section). Webpage/article is called "Resurrection: 1946", written by Dr Alban Webb.
The webpage I looked at for the 1939 info is called "The Edit That Rewrote History" by Russ J Graham at the Transdifussion Broadcasting System website. That webpage, near the bottom, includes an image of the relevant official BBC "programme as broadcast" document from 1/9/1939. The document makes the name of the announcer look like Fay - rather than Kay - probably a typo - & the webpage mentioned lists her as Fay. But elsewhere on the internet - eg. also at the Transdiffusion Broadcast System website; in a transcription of a 1940 Radio Times article about announcers which listed most then-current BBC announcers, she is listed as Kay Cavendish. The RT article mentions that she started announcing on television before the war and also that she was well known as a musician.
|
|