The motion picture almanac (1931)

384 The MOTION PICTURE ALMANAC 1931 (Continued from page 382) motion pictures as a medium of education. At a test made on February 12, in the General Electric Laboratories, the features of a professor of the University of Leipsig, Germany, were recognized by his friends as televised across the Atlantic ocean from Schenectady. Ives has made further progress with his television experiments and has found that scanning by purple light gives better reproduction of image tones. Potassium photocells sensitive to the blue component of the purple light are used in conjunction with caesium cells for the red. Ives has also constructed a three-channel apparatus in which prisms placed over the holes in a scanning disk, direct the incident light into three photoelectric cells. The three sets of signals are transmitted over three channels to a triple electrode neon lamp placed behind a viewing disk also provided with prisms over its apertures. An image of 13,000 elements is thus produced. Good telephotographs contain about 250,000 elements, however, and according to Gannett it is quite impractical under present conditions to radio broadcast such pictures. A new multiplex system of television was introduced in England recently which uses a standard motion picture projector for transmission of pictures. Five transmission channels are employed, each transmitting one-fifth of the picture. An apparatus has been devised by Withrow and Boyd which makes possible simultaneous flame and pressure studies by photography of individual explosions in a gasoline engine. The flame pictures were made on a constantly moving film through a quartz window in the cylinder head. A Color Cinematography. — Comparatively few color motion pictures were released during the past six months. Nevertheless, laboratories for color work continued to improve their processing equipment and devise additional refinements in their actual processes. With the marked improvement in speed and color sensitivity of panchromatic emulsions, coupled with improvements in optical systems, lighting equipment and processing, it is likely that fur-' ther refinements will be forthcoming in color print quality. It is significant that a well known producing organization demonstrated a threecolor additive process at the meeting of the New York Section of the Society in December, 1930. Both originals and prints made by this process (Keller-Dorian) were shown. The film has horizontally embossed lenticulations and the copies were said to have been made by a new optical printing process. Macrae offers the suggestion that the screen should be farther back from the front seats for an all-color program than for an ordinary program since the sensitivity of the eye for color diminishes towards the periphery of the field of vision. Another application of the bi-pack method of exposure has been made in the Magnacolor process. The first industrial motion picture made by the Multicolor process was produced during the past six months under the title "Stepping Ahead." Amateur Cinematography. — In April, 1931, a new camera was announced which was claimed by its manufacturers to be the lightest camera using 16 mm. film yet offered to the market. When loaded with 100 feet of film, it weighs 3J/2 pounds. The cabinet of a new projector for use with disk records has been designed to hold both the turntable and projector. The necessary amplification of the sound is supplied by a separate cabinet containing a loudspeaker unit. A sound projector called the Animatophone is so designed that the sound disk record rotates in a vertical plane and is connected directly to the projector motor shaft. Several models of inexpensive projectors using 16 mm. film have been marketed, intended primarily as toys for children. Projectors and projection accessories were protected by several patents. The advantages of the 20-volt lamp for 16 mm. projectors are obvious, both for spherical and aspheric condenser systems, a gain of 25 per cent in screen lumens being shown over 50-volt lamps of the same wattage. More recently, a 375-watt, 75-volt lamp was made available which is still a greater improvement over the previously used types. At the Congress of German Broadcasters, held in Vienna last fall, sound records on paper were shown for playing in conjunction with amateur cinema projection. The sound is recorded on sensitized paper strips, 6 mm. wide, on which there is room for four sound tracks. Three hundred meters require 40 minutes for reproduction. The record is of the variable width type and may be printed either photographically on paper or mechanically. Sound is reproduced by light reflected from the paper. A Statistics. — There are a total of 75 theatres in the U. S. Army camps and posts in the United States, of which 58 were equipped for sound pictures during 1930. About 17,00 performances are given yearly and the average house seats 400 persons. Europe now has 33,870 motion picture theatres which represents an increase since (Continued on page 388) "Pyroloid Premiums Build a Permanent Business Write for Details of Our Latest Plans PYROLOID SALES COMPANY Manufacturers for Over Thirty Years ATHOL, MASS.