Projection engineering (Sept 1929-Nov 1930)

Projection Engineering, September, 1929 Page hi ieWusff BATSEL JOINS PHOTOPHONE M. C. Batsel, Westinghouse engineer, has been appointed to the post of chief engineer of RCA Photophone, Inc. Under his supervision activities by Photophone in recording and reproduction will be continued. ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY MEETS The first regular meeting of the Acoustical Society of America was held in the auditorium of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City recently. Nearly 300 attended the meeting, which included election of officers, presentation of papers and round table discussions. The enthusiasm shown indicates that the new Society will have a vigorous and useful life. Papers on architectural acoustics were numerous during the two-day meeting. Architects will be glad to know that there was much comment about the desirability of co-operation between experimenters as well as standardization of test methods. The Society includes in its scope workers in all lines of acoustics. Electrical communication, radio, falking pictures and musical instruments all have a part in its affairs. Physiological aspects of speech and audition are, of course, of fundamental importance. The following men were elected as officers of the Society : President, Harvey Fletcher, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., New York City ; Vice-President, Vern O. Knudsen, University of California, Los Angeles ; Secretary, Wallace Waterfall. The Celotex Company, Chicago ; Treasurer, Charles Fuller Stoddard, American Piano Company, New York City. Members of the executive council are : Paul E. Sabine, Riverbank Laboratories, Geneva, Illinois ; J. P. Maxfield, Electrical Research Products, Inc., New York City ; C. W. Hewlett, General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York ; G. R. Anderson, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada : Dayton C. Miller, Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio ; F. R. Watson, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. It was decided to print the proceedings of the Society in full. This volume will be a valuable addition to the library of all persons interested in acoustics. The next meeting was set for Chicago on December 13 and 14 of this year. NEW MELLAPHONE HEADQUARTERS The Mella phone Corporation is now located in its new headquarters in the Keith Albee Theatre Building and factory, University Ave., Rochester, N. Y. Immediate deliveries are being made by the company on the Super Mellaphone. Orders just received for Mellaphones are being shipped to dealers in Sydney, Australia, Havana, Cuba, Rotterdam, Holland, and Calgary. W. E. PRODUCTION UP With well over 2,000 complete soundon-film and disc reproducers already installed in theatres throughout the country, Western Electric continues to expand facilities for production and installation of talking picture equipment. It is understood that Electrical Research Products, Inc., Western Electric subsidiary in the sound field, now has a service organization capable of putting complete installations into theatres at the rate of 100 a week. It is quite likely that the number of Western Electric systems operating in theatres will mount to the total of 5,000 by the end of this year. At the rate orders are now being placed for the equipments and the abilitv of the company to install them it is said that the five-thousand mark is certain to be reached before 1930. The bulk of the orders now being filled NEW SYNTHANE REPRESENTATIVE .T. K. Johnson is now the Philadelphia District Sales Representative for Synthane Corporation, manufacturer of laminated Bakelite products, situated at Oaks, Pennsylvania. Other representatives are J. B. Rittenhouse. Chicago ; H. G. Blauvelt. New York City ; C. E. White & Company,»Cleveland. MACY MANUFACTURING CORP. ENLARGES PLANT Announcement is made by J. J. Auerbaan of the Macy Manufacturing Corp., 1451 39th St., Brooklyn, N. Y., that in order to meet the demand for their exponential horns they are enlarging their plant, thereby tripling their manufacturing capacity. They expect to have this new addition in full production by the middle of September. JENKINS TELEVISION PRODUCTION ANNOUNCED With the recent development of a novel combination scanning drum and selector shutter disk by its engineering staff, resulting in a simpler, more economical, and far more practical scanning system, the Jenkins Television Corporation of Jersey called for installation of the dual system equipments, with the added feature of a non-synchronous attachment included in a high percentage of the new business now begin written by the company. The demand for non-synchronous alone has fallen off to such an extent that this unit of the line has become a negligible quantity, it is understood. CARLILE TO HEAD PARAMOUNT'S RADIO DEPARTMENT Formerly of Station WOR, Newark, N. J., where he handled program and production work, J. S. Carlile has been announced as head of the newly created radio department of Paramount. The department is handling the company's radio plans now being formulated and is an outgrowth of the recent purchase of a half interest in the Columbia Broadcasting System by Paramount. Mr. Carlile has also acted as guest announcer for the Columbia System and has written a number of programs for presentation over the air. TONO-O-GRAPH IN PRODUCTION The Tono-O-Graph sound motion picture reproducing machine, is now being manufactured in quantity production for theatre installations, Jt is announced by the North American Sound and Talking Picture Equipment Corp., New York, whose factory is located at Long Island City. Prices of the reproducing machine are placed at $1,800 and $2,500. Installation, to take three hours, is made free of charge, the company charging only for the wiring. FOX WIDESCOPE The Fox Film Corp. is pushing work on its new wide film process and it is understood that the first public showing of Widescope will be given early in September. Special projectors for use with Widescope have been built by the International Projector Corp., which company is understood to have cooperated with Fox in the development of the process. Widescope is the third entry in the wide film derby, both RCA and Paramount having already demonstrated their processes —the Spoor-Berggren and Magna-film systems, respectively. iltfHlM City, N. J., now announces the mass production of television apparatus. "Although we have been in production on experimental television equipment for six months past," states James W. Garside, President of the Jenkins Television Corporation, "we have withheld mass production of market models until we could be positive of our grounds. Our earlier models were too elaborate and costly for use in the average home, while the results left much to be desired. Therefore, our production until now consisted of sample televisors for use in checking up the efficiency of our television transmitters at Jersey City and Washington, under typical receiving conditions. "With our latest development, we have evolved a remarkably simple, inexpensive, and highly practical televisor, which can be readily manufactured at a reasonable cost. The new Jenkins televisor will permit of receiving either plain black-andpink radiomovies or full halftone pictures, with good detail and illumination within the limitations of our present 48-line system. Should we find it advisable to go to 60 or more lines, based on our present experiments and developments, the Jenkins televisors can be readily changed over to accommodate additional lines and finer detail." SITE FOR NEW BAKELITE PLANT The Bakelite Corporation have selected seven tracts, embracing over 130 acres, in Middlesex, N. J. for their own plant. The properties border on the Reading and the Lehigh Valley Railroads. S M P E FALL MEETING IN TORONTO L. C. Porter, president of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, announces that the board of governors has decided to hold the next meeting of the society in Toronto, October 7 to 10. inclusive. Canadian and other members of the S M P E have been making an insistant demand for a convention to be held in Canada, as none has been there since the one in Ottawa in 1923. As the spring meeting, held in New York last May, was highly successful from every standpoint, greatly increasing the membership and making the industry better acquainted with the activities of the society, it is believed that the attendance will be very large at the coming Toronto meeting. NEW GERMAN SOUND DEVICE It is reported that a new German sound reproducing equipment is to be brought on the market. It is to be constructed according to the Lignose-Breusing system and to use T. D. K. amplifiers. The recent ruling of Berlin courts against Western Electric in connection with the use of these amplifiers is supposed not to apply to the proposed apparatus, as an agreement exists between the promoters and the electric concern of Felten-Guilleaume of Burenberg, which belongs to the exploiting syndicate of the Lieben patents, in the same way as does Telefunken. The new equipment is to he a disc system and is expected to cost from 6,500 marks to 9,500 marks, according to the size of the house to be wired. ACOUSTICAL ADVICE The American Seating Company is offering a special service to theatres in connection with its supplying of theatre chairs. Advice on acoustical problems will be given by its engineers in consultation with Dr. F. R. Watson, acoustical expert of the University of Illinois.