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46 AMATEUR TALKING PICTURES
knob just before one speaks, releasing it immediately a sentence is complete. This effects considerable economy in length of recording cylinder.
The transcriber is a similar machine except that it is not provided with a recording device, but instead is equipped with a pair of "headphones" which operate on acoustic principles.
An ingenious arrangement for starting and stopping, and repeating is provided by means of which the typist works the machine by the foot, thus keeping her hands and fingers free for the keyboard of the typewriter.
Attempts have been made from time to time to adapt the disc type machine for business purposes. It is possible, of course, that the disc machine might enter this field successfully, but it would have to be considerably improved. At the outside a 12-in. disc record lasts five minutes, while a Dictaphone cylinder runs for eleven minutes. Furthermore, considerable difficulties would have to be overcome before a disc machine was rendered as foolproof and easy to operate as the Dictaphone.
It should be mentioned in conclusion that dictating machines are intended to record and reproduce clear and not necessarily natural speech. There is a vast difference in this, as will have been gathered by the references made in Chapter I. A dictating machine under normal conditions would not be suitable for entertainment or for recording music, although we believe certain experiments have been made by the gramophone companies along these lines.
One of the great economies of the dictating machines utilizing the wax cylinder is, that after a cylinder has been transcribed the cylinder itself is placed on another machine known as a "shaver," which by use of a sapphire cutter skims away the recording by taking a cut of a few thousandths of an inch, and leaving a polished surface ready for the next dictating. A cylinder will thus last for many dictations, and when one considers that it is possible to dictate some 1,400 words per recording the total life of even a single cylinder will be appreciated. It is actually in the region of 140,000 words.