Sound motion pictures : from the laboratory to their presentation (1929)

USE OF SOUND 317 prospective customers in sales and demonstration rooms. Executives and sales managers will send their messages to their field staffs by means of the device. Sales will be made through demonstrations by talking pictures. Furthermore, a complete sound and photographic record of conventions, banquets, and important meetings is now made possible. Such proceedings may be recorded for all time, eliminating possibility of error in transcribing or reporting. Sixteen millimeter film could be used, particularly when a record of speech only might be desired and when a minimum of storage space is a consideration. Such film is less than half the width of the standard size; and since five pictures on the small film are equal in length to two pictures on the larger, a 400foot reel of 16 mm. film is equivalent to a 1,000-foot reel of standard film. Thus the 16 mm. film can be handled at a lower cost, and requires lighter equipment in recording and reproduction. There is already at least one interesting example: recently an important group of bankers were assembled at a dinner where a keynote message was to be delivered by an important personage. Unexpected circumstances made it necessary for the man to be abroad on that date. The day, however, was far from lost. A Movietone was made of his talk and was shown to his astonished and delighted co-workers! The amplification of sound, as we all know, has for a number of years been put to successful commercial use through the medium of the public address system, which is in many respects a counterpart of the amplification used in the reproduction of sound motion pictures. Public address systems have been employed with a considerable degree of success in banquet rooms, large auditoriums, and public places to convey the addresses of speakers to great audiences so that all present may clearly hear everything said. At the recent inauguration of President Herbert