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PRECISION, THE DOMINANT FACTOR IN MOTION PICTURE MACHINES
W. B. WESCOTT Boston, Mass.
Mr. Chairman — Gentlemen :
We, in this body, will undoubtedly spend much time and thought on standards, and it seems to me that a cursory survey of the most important of these standards would be pertinent at this time — especially in their relation to each other, and the allowable departure from the standard ; that is in the precision measure of the standard.
I think that you will agree that the final criterion of all motion picture standards is to be found in the Picture on the Screen. Hence, we may confine our efforts at standardization to those elements in which departures from a precise standard affect, directly or indirectly, our clear, steady picture on the screen. For instance, let us examine whether or not we shall consider for standardization the projector-magazine-reel spindle. Certainly; — because after all the evils of spindles, such as being out of true, too small, etc., are lightly passed over, and if I am not mistaken there are those of us who have something definite to say about this same reel-bearingspindle ; there may be seen on the screen the effects of a wobbling, heavy reel — the vertical vibration of the picture may be due in part to this, — the lateral vibration due to damage to the film edge by the unsteady reel, — scratches due to ripping when toward the last of the reel, there are sudden and violent changes in an already high angular velocity. Therefore, this spindle is worthy of a standard and the list of vital parts to be standardized is a long one.
We will find as we go down the list of elements that function toward the final picture, that most of them should conform to some standard — that there is one shape, size, position, relation or speed which results in least action; that is, produces the desired effect with satisfactory precision at a minimum expense of energy, material, space or wear.
But we will find that the precision measure of the standards will vary probably from element to element. For instance, our taking lenses should have at full aperture, as high a resolving power as possible, but not less than the lower limit of our standard; while with our present condenser systems, a more highly corrected lens than the usual projection objective will not show a marked improvement in definition on the screen. Then, for our taking lens, the standard must have much narrower limits than those permissible for our standard of projection objective.
And again, it is obvious that in the matter of projection machine aperture we have much greater latitude than we have in, say, the intermittent mechanism which positions, at this aperture, the image