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Posted: |
Aug 10, 2013 - 2:35 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....Involving reproduction equipment that was relatively inexpensive for exhibitors to license and install, Dolby Stereo soon enough became the norm for market-oriented filmmakers. Its spread was not so endemic as had been that of the Western Electric amplification system that initiated the era of the sound film. With no alternatives except to continue showing silent films, all theater owners who wanted to remain in business in the 1927-30 period were in effect compelled to adopt the Western Electric system.....
Harrybocai......
The KEY word in this paragraph is "amplification"!
In the 1927-1931 period there were four major studio recording systems in place at various studios: RCA Photophone, a "a variable-area" sound-on-film system, Warner Bros. Vitaphone sound-on-disc system (co-partnered with Western Electric), Lee DeForest's Phonofilm, a "variable-density" sound-on-film system, and Fox-Case's Movietone, another "variable-density" sound-on-film system. Addtionally, there was the Tobis-Klangfilm sound-on-film system based on the Tri-Ergon patents, in Europe.
Though in competition with RCA, what Western Electric managed to do, through its "Electrical Research Products, Inc" / "ERPI" sales subsidiary, was sign nearly all of the major studios to providing Western Electric Sound Systems in their theatres (supplying sound-pickups at the film projector point, sound amplifiers, general electrical sound accessories, and, primarily, the massive behind-the-screen speaker assemblies.)
So.....this Western Electric monopoly (at least for awhile) was in the exhibition end of the business. Remember that most of the studios also had huge numbers of theatres they owned in chains/circuits across the country. If Western Electric simply supplied those during this demanding time, they would be very busy. The small town independent exhibitor was on his own. He might go with Western Electric or RCA or other, lesser, suppliers, or continue with silents or go out of business. In some cases, the small town exhibitor was not hampered by which sound supplier he used, he was primarily hampered by the cost of installing this equipment in his small theatre at all. Many went out of business, just as many went out of business in the CinemaScope days of the 1950s when the cost for re-equipping with new lenses, wide screens (and sometimes auditorium reconfiguration) and sound systems, could reach $25,000. Where he couldn't pay the tab, he eventually closed up shop.
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