Sound-on-disc explained

Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent systems use timecode.

Examples of sound-on-disc processes

France

• The Chronophone (Léon Gaumont) "Filmparlants" and phonoscènes 1902–1910 (experimental), 1910–1917 (industrial)^[1]

United States

• Vitaphone introduced by Warner Bros. in 1926
• Phono-Kinema, short-lived system, invented by Orlando Kellum in 1921 (used by D. W. Griffith for Dream Street)
• Digital Theater Systems

United Kingdom

• British Phototone, short-lived UK system using 12-inch discs, introduced in 1928-29 (Clue of the New Pin)

Other

• Systems with the film projector linked to a phonograph or cylinder phonograph, developed by Thomas Edison (Kinetophone, Kinetophonograph), Selig Polyscope, French companies such as Gaumont (Chronomégaphone and Chronophone) and Pathé, and British systems.

See also

• Sound film (includes history of sound film)
• Sound-on-film
• List of film formats
• List of early sound feature films (1926–1929)

Notes and References

1. Thomas Louis Jacques Schmitt, « The genealogy of clip culture » in Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena (dir.) Rewind, Play, Fast Forward, transcript,