Sound-on-disc

Western Electric engineer E. B. Craft (on the left) demonstrating Vitaphone sound-on-disc film system

Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent systems use timecodes.

Examples of sound-on-disc processes

France

• The Chronophone (Léon Gaumont) "Filmparlants" and phonoscènes 1902–1910 (experimental), 1910–1917 (industrial)^[1]

United States

• Vitaphone introduced by Warner Bros. in 1926
• Photokinema, short-lived system, invented by Orlando Kellum in 1921 (used by D. W. Griffith for Dream Street)
• Digital Theater Systems

United Kingdom

• British Phototone, short-lived UK system using 12-inch discs, introduced in 1928-29 (Clue of the New Pin)

Other

• Systems with the film projector linked to a phonograph or cylinder phonograph, developed by Thomas Edison (Kinetophone, Kinetophonograph), Selig Polyscope, French companies such as Gaumont (Chronomégaphone, Chronophone), and Pathé, and British systems.

Film censorship

During the 1920s and early 1930s, films in the United States were subject to censorship by state and city censor boards, which often required cuts of scenes before a film would be licensed for exhibition. While films using the sound-on-film process could accommodate a patch for a requested cut with ease, a film using sound-on-disc would require an expensive retake.^[2] If the cost of compliance with a censor board was too high, the film would not be shown in that state or city.

See also

• Sound film (includes history of sound film)
• Sound-on-film
• List of film formats
• List of early sound feature films (1926–1929)

References

1. Thomas Louis Jacques Schmitt, « The genealogy of clip culture » in Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena (dir.) Rewind, Play, Fast Forward, transcript, ISBN 978-3-8376-1185-4
2. Leff, Leonard J.; Simmons, Jerold L. (2001). The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code (2nd ed.). University Press of Kentucky. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-8131-9011-2.