Vitaphone was a sound film process used on several features and shorts produced by Warner Brothers in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The business was established in the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, New York acquired by Warners Bros. in 1925. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer, used the Vitaphone process. Vitaphone was the last of the so-called sound-on-disc processes, and its technical imperfections led to its retirement early in the sound era. A sound film (or talkie) is a motion picture with synchronized sound, as opposed to a silent movie. ... Warner Bros. ... American Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 and bought by Warner Brothers in 1925. ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... A sound film (or talkie) is a motion picture with synchronized sound, as opposed to a silent movie. ... The Jazz Singer is a 1927 U.S. movie notable for being the first talking motion picture to be widely commercially distributed. ... The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes utilizing a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture. ...

A Vitaphone-equipped theater used special projectors, an amplifier, and speakers. The projectors operated as normal silent projectors would, but also provided a mechanical interlock with an attached phonograph turntable. When the projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark on the film with the picture gate, and would at the same time place a phonograph record on the turntable, being careful to align the phonograph needle with a arrow scribed on the record's label. Projectors are used for projecting an image on a projection screen or similar surface for the view of an audience. ... An amplifier can be considered to be any device that uses a small amount of energy to control a larger amount, although the term today usually refers to an electronic amplifier. ... Closeup of a loudspeaker driver A loudspeaker is a device which converts an electrical signal into sound. ... An interlock is a device used to help prevent a machine from harming its operator or damaging itself by stopping the machine when tripped. ... It has been suggested that Direct-drive_turntable be merged into this article or section. ...

When the projector rolled, the phonograph turned at a fixed rate, and (theoretically) played sound in sync with the film passing the picture gate simultaneously.

The Vitaphone process made several improvements over previous systems:

• Amplification - The Vitaphone system was one of the first to use electronic amplification, using Lee De Forest's audion tube. This allowed the sound of the phonograph to be played to a large audience at a comfortable volume.
• Fidelity - Vitaphone records had shorter playing times than regular phonograph records of the time, and in the early days, Vitaphone had superior fidelity to sound-on-film processes, particularly at low frequencies. Phonographs also had superior dynamic range, on the first few playings.

These innovations notwithstanding, the Vitaphone process lost the early format war with sound-on-film processes for many reasons: Lee De Forest patented a three-electrode version of the Audion. ... Audion may be the name of a wireless signal detector device invented by Lee DeForest in 1906, see vacuum tube media player for Apple Macintosh [1] an indie rock band from Columbus, Ohio This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the... Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same film strip of film carrying the picture. ... Sine waves of various frequencies; the lower waves have higher frequencies than those above. ... A format war describes competition between competing, and typically mutually incompatible, media formats, usually very costly to the format-owning parties involved. ...

• Distribution Issues - Vitaphone records had to be distributed along with film prints, and shipping records required a whole infrastructure apart from the already-existing film distribution system. Additionally, records would wear out after several screenings, and had to be replaced. This consumed even more distribution overhead.
• Synchronization - Vitaphone had severe and notorious synchronization problems. If a record skipped, it would fall out of sync with the picture, and the projectionist would have to manually restore sync. Additionally, if the film print became damaged and was not precisely repaired, the length relationship between the record and the print could be lost, also causing a loss of sync. The Vitaphone projectors had special levers and linkages to advance and retard sync, but it required the continual attention of the operator, and this was impractical. The system for aligning start marks on film and start marks on records was far from exact.
• Editing - A phonograph record cannot be edited directly, and this significantly limited the creative potential of Vitaphone films. Warner Brothers went to great expense to develop a highly complex phonograph-based dubbing system, using synchronization phonographs and Strowger switch-triggered playback phonographs (working very much like a modern sampler.)
• Fidelity versus Sound-on-Film - The fidelity of sound-on-film processes had improved considerably since its introduction by the Fox Film Corporation, and particularly after the adoption of RCA's variable-area recording technique.

The last Vitaphone shorts were produced in 1933. To make new film titles backward-compatible with Vitaphone theaters, films produced with the sound-on-film process were released simultaneously in Vitaphone and sound-on-film processes. Warner Bros. kept the "Vitaphone" name alive as the name of its short subjects division, The Vitaphone Corporation, most famous for releasing Leon Schlesinger's Looney Tunes] and Merrie Melodies, later produced by Wanrers in-house from 1944 on. Almon Brown Strowger (1839 - May 26, 1902) gave his name to the electromechanical telephone exchange technology that his invention and patent inspired. ... A sampler can be any of the following things: In general, a sampler is any broadly representative cross-section of some collection; for instance, food products are sometimes packaged in samplers containing a variety of chocolates or beers. ... The Fox Film Corporation was an American company which produced motion pictures, formed in 1915 when founder William Fox merged two companies he had established in 1913: Greater New York Film Rental, a distribution firm, which was part of the Independents; and Fox (or Box, depending on the source) Office... RCA, formerly an initialism for the Radio Corporation of America, is now a trademark used by two companies for products descended from that common ancestor: Thomson SA, which manufactures consumer electronics like RCA-branded televisions, DVD players, video cassette recorders, direct broadcast satellite decoders, camcorders, audio equipment, telephones, and related... 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... In technology (especially computing), backward compatibility has several related but differing meanings: A system is backward compatible if it is compatible with earlier versions of itself, or sometimes other earlier systems, particularly systems it intends to supplant. ... Leon Schlesinger (1884 - December 25, 1949) was a producer at the Warner Bros. ... Looney Tunes logo, featuring Bugs Bunny. ... Merrie Melodies end title Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. ... 1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Though operating on principles so different as to make it unrecognizable to a Vitaphone engineer, Digital Theater Sound is a sound-on-disc system, the first to gain wide adoption since the abandonment of Vitaphone. Digital Theatre System (DTS) is a multi-channel surround sound format used for both commercial and consumer grade applications (with slight technical differences between home and commercial variants). ...