Vitaphone
Sign in to saveVitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short films made by Warner Bros. Pictures and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically in diameter, are played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response
Key facts
- Company.type
- Subsidiary of Warner Bros. Pictures
- Company.location_country
- United States
- Company.location_city
- Los Angeles, California
- Company.parent
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Company.products
- Motion pictures
- Company.logo
- Warner Bros. Vitaphone Talking Pictures - The Film Daily, Jan-Jun 1929 (page 109 crop).jpg
- Company.logo_caption
- Warner Bros. Vitaphone logo
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 2 more facts
- dissolved, abolished or demolished date
- 1960-00-00
- inception
- 1925-00-00
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~26 min read
Article
11 sectionsContents
- Early history
- Process
- Vitaphone soundtrack discs
- Vitaphone shorts
- The Vitaphone Project
- Vitaphone and Vitagraph brand names
- Legacy
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short films made by Warner Bros. Pictures and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically in diameter, are played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response is 4300 Hz. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound".
The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs.