International projectionist (Jan 1963-June 1965)

oictures had banished the glamorous poetry of silent pantomime from the screen forever. Speech came to the screen with astonishing suddenness, and in two distinctly different media of sound recording. One form of the screen's new-found voice was the 33V3-RPM Vitaphone disc record which ran in synchronism with the film on a turntable geared to the projector motor. The other was, of course, the photographic soundtrack printed on the film alongside of the picture. Projectionists thus spoke of "sound on disc" and "sound on film" in the early days of talkies — the days when critics of the new sound movies grumbled that Hollywood lost its brains when it found its voice. And to distinguish the reproduction of synchronous sound on disc for the audio accompaniment of a movie from the ordinary nonsynchronous musical recordings played before the show, the ordinary phonograph for commercial 78-RPM discs was called a "non-sync." This obsolete term is still used to some extent. 33!/3-RPM Discs Now Preferred 78-RPM phonograph records held the field for musical recordings in spite of the fact that 33%-RPM discs had been used for the Vitaphone talkie records and for radio transcriptions. The old Victor Talking Machine Co. made a valiant attempt to introduce musical 33's for home use, but without much success. Incidentally, all these early SS^-RPM discs were made with the same 3-mil grooves used for 78's, not the finer 1-mil "microgrooves" now used for long-play records, and they started playing at the inside groove and ended at the outside rim. Because 78's are no longer manufactured, and because a somewhat limited choice of music is available on the doughnut-shaped 45's, the emphasis for theatre music, as well as for music to be played in the home, is definitely focused upon the SS^-RPM long-play records. The theatre that has only a 45-RPM record player is cheating itself of good music. The record player used in the theatre should be of the 4-speed type with a stereo cartridge in the 33%45 side of the pickup in order that all kinds, speeds, and sizes of records may be played. Aside from the retention of excellent 78's which are still present in long-established collections of fine music, it is best to add only hi-fi 33's to a record collection. With the exception of a somewhat higher noise level and a more restricted dynamic range, the later 78-RPM discs made of plastic are the equals of any. Plastic 78's are more resistant to wear than the soft and powdery shellac records made for many years, but the hardest and most wear-resistant records we know of were the 78's made for use with heavy acoustic reproducers in the days before electric pickups. These ancient discs, surprisingly, were also pressed from a material having a shellac base! Needle Wear Problem Modern 33I/3-RPM long-play records are extraordinarily sensitive to needle wear. This is due to the finer stylus point required to fit the fine 1-mil microgrooves, and to the finer sound variations in the grooves occasioned by extension of the high-frequency end of the sound spectrum to 12,000-18,000 cycles and by an (Continued on Page 12) 'here is a FIRST BEST in Anything! In ARC LAMPS IT IS THE OPTICALLY INTEGRATED C S. ASHCRAFT'S HHHnnn^HHHHH (f ® JfariiW,,, " ■ *rh V ' "• (If ■• ." mBF .'• \' t Jp (Patent Pending) It does unheard of things in screen lighting. Such as ... up to 100% increase in screen side-lighting. It works on any current from 78 to 115 amperes. It does it on a single size positive carbon, 11mm in diameter. It will exceed accepted industry standards in lighting an outdoor screen 52 feet wide. It is the answer to the ill-lighted Drive-In screen up to 95 feet in width. It is a miserly brute in its operating expenses. Saves you up to 50% in carbon costs. Want proof? Call your National Theatre Supply Co. man. He will prove the CORE-LITE worth in indoor or drive-in theatres with existing screens and lenses. Trademark registered and copyrighted. Patent applied for. The C. S. Ashcraft Mfg. Co., Inc. 36-32 Thirty Eighth Street, Long Island City, N. Y. International Projectionist January, 1963