[Jukebox-list] Movie Sound

[David Breneman]

--- Ron Rich <ronnnrich at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ed, 
>   Wasn't "Vitaphone" a news reel type short--or am I getting it
> mixed up with "Movie Tone"--or did Movie Tone use Vitaphone?
>   What are "variable density soundracks"--the sound on film
> process??

Vitaphone was Warner Bros.'s trademark for the Western Electric
system that recorded audio on disks.  Movietone was Fox's
trademark for the DeForest system that recorded sound as
a variable-area soundtrack on the film.  Fox Movietone News
was Fox's "all talking" newsreel series, and the name
continued on well past the novelty of sound itself.  RCA
also had a license for DeForest's system, made several
improvements to it, and marketed it under the Photophone 
trademark.  They bought the Keith and Orpheum theater chains
to form the "RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Radio Pictures" studio
to showcase their system.  By the 1930s, Western Electric
had developed a variable-density optical system that was
marketed as the "Western Electric Noiseless Sound System"
because, since the soundtrack always consumed the entire
width of the sound track area, it was much less susceptible
to scratch and dust noise in the sound pickup.  The downside
of that was that the exposure of the gray-scale-dependant
soundtrack was very critical in the printing process,
whereas RCA's variable-area sountrack, which relied on only
the difference between black and white, could be exposed
over a wide latitude and still produce acceptable sound.


David Breneman         david_breneman at yahoo.com


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