Tri-Ergon
Encyclopedia
The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film
system was patented from 1919 on by German inventors Josef Engl (1893-1942), Hans Vogt (1890-1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889-1957). The name Tri-Ergon was derived from Greek and means "the work of three." (See FilmSoundSweden website under External Links section below.)
In 1926, William Fox
of Fox Film Corporation purchased the U. S. rights to the Tri-Ergon patents from Tri-Ergon Aktiengesellschaft (Tri-Ergon AG), Zürich
, Switzerland
. Fox also purchased sound-on-film patents from Freeman Harrison Owens
and Theodore Case
and used these inventions to create the new sound-on-film system he dubbed Fox Movietone
. One of the first feature films to be released in Fox Movietone was Sunrise
(1927) directed by F. W. Murnau. Fox also used the system for the long-running newsreel
series Fox Movietone News.
Movietone and other sound-on-film systems were in competition with sound-on-disc
systems such as Warner Bros.
Vitaphone
. However, sound-on-film systems such as Movietone and RCA Photophone
soon became the standard, and sound-on-disc fell into disuse.
After Fox lost control of Fox Studios in 1930, he used the Tri-Ergon patents to sue the film industry in order to take a part-ownership in all sound films and in all sound film systems. The Tri-Ergon patents named particular technical features that preceded all other sound-on-film patents, such as a flywheel
on the sound drum. Fox at first won his lawsuit and then lost it in an unusual reversal of decision by the U. S. Supreme Court. In Germany
, the Tri-Ergon patents were determined to be so strong, for a time all other sound film systems were shut out of that country.
A subsidiary, Tri-Ergon Musik AG of Berlin
, made commercial phonograph
records for the German, French, Swedish and Danish markets from about 1928 to 1932. Although the product was advertised as "Photo-Electro-Records," it is unknown whether the sound-on-film process was actually used in making them, perhaps for simple cutting of the record.
The Tri-Ergon process involved recording sound onto film using the "variable density" method, used by Movietone and Lee De Forest
's Phonofilm
, rather than the "variable area" method later used by RCA Photophone
.
The Tri-Ergon system used a special form of microphone without mechanical moving parts (Katodophone) for sound pickup and a special electric discharge tube for variable density film recording. For reproduction of sound, the system used an electrostatic loudspeaker
.
An original Tri-Ergon sound movie projector
(dated to 1923) is in the collection of the Deutsches Museum
in München, Germany
.
Sound-on-film
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 strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
system was patented from 1919 on by German inventors Josef Engl (1893-1942), Hans Vogt (1890-1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889-1957). The name Tri-Ergon was derived from Greek and means "the work of three." (See FilmSoundSweden website under External Links section below.)
In 1926, William Fox
William Fox (producer)
William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...
of Fox Film Corporation purchased the U. S. rights to the Tri-Ergon patents from Tri-Ergon Aktiengesellschaft (Tri-Ergon AG), Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Fox also purchased sound-on-film patents from Freeman Harrison Owens
Freeman Harrison Owens
Freeman Harrison Owens , born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the only child of Charles H. Owens and Christabel Harrison. He attended Pine Bluff High School in Pine Bluff, but quit in his senior year to work at a local movie theatre as a projectionist.Owens constructed his own 35mm movie camera at the age...
and Theodore Case
Theodore Case
Theodore Willard Case known for the invention of the Movietone sound-on-film sound film system, was born into a prominent family in Auburn, New York.-Family history:...
and used these inventions to create the new sound-on-film system he dubbed Fox Movietone
Movietone sound system
The Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
. One of the first feature films to be released in Fox Movietone was Sunrise
Sunrise (film)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann.Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production...
(1927) directed by F. W. Murnau. Fox also used the system for the long-running newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
series Fox Movietone News.
Movietone and other sound-on-film systems were in competition with sound-on-disc
Sound-on-disc
The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture...
systems such as Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
. However, sound-on-film systems such as Movietone and RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
soon became the standard, and sound-on-disc fell into disuse.
After Fox lost control of Fox Studios in 1930, he used the Tri-Ergon patents to sue the film industry in order to take a part-ownership in all sound films and in all sound film systems. The Tri-Ergon patents named particular technical features that preceded all other sound-on-film patents, such as a flywheel
Flywheel
A flywheel is a rotating mechanical device that is used to store rotational energy. Flywheels have a significant moment of inertia, and thus resist changes in rotational speed. The amount of energy stored in a flywheel is proportional to the square of its rotational speed...
on the sound drum. Fox at first won his lawsuit and then lost it in an unusual reversal of decision by the U. S. Supreme Court. In Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the Tri-Ergon patents were determined to be so strong, for a time all other sound film systems were shut out of that country.
A subsidiary, Tri-Ergon Musik AG of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, made commercial phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
records for the German, French, Swedish and Danish markets from about 1928 to 1932. Although the product was advertised as "Photo-Electro-Records," it is unknown whether the sound-on-film process was actually used in making them, perhaps for simple cutting of the record.
The Tri-Ergon process involved recording sound onto film using the "variable density" method, used by Movietone and Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
's Phonofilm
Phonofilm
In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
, rather than the "variable area" method later used by RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
.
The Tri-Ergon system used a special form of microphone without mechanical moving parts (Katodophone) for sound pickup and a special electric discharge tube for variable density film recording. For reproduction of sound, the system used an electrostatic loudspeaker
Electrostatic loudspeaker
An electrostatic loudspeaker is a loudspeaker design in which sound is generated by the force exerted on a membrane suspended in an electrostatic field.-Design and functionality:...
.
An original Tri-Ergon sound movie projector
Movie projector
A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying moving pictures by projecting them on a projection screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras.-Physiology:...
(dated to 1923) is in the collection of the Deutsches Museum
Deutsches Museum
The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of technology and science, with approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. The museum was founded on June 28, 1903, at a meeting of the Association...
in München, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
See also
- PhonofilmPhonofilmIn 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
- VitaphoneVitaphoneVitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
- RCA PhotophoneRCA PhotophoneRCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
- PhotokinemaPhotokinemaPhoto-Kinema was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.-1921 introduction:The system was first used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921...
- Fox MovietoneMovietone sound systemThe Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
- Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner
- Eric TigerstedtEric TigerstedtEric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt was one of the most significant inventors in Finland at the beginning of the 20th century, and has been called the "Thomas Edison of Finland"...
- Sound filmSound filmA sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
- sound-on-discSound-on-discThe term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture...
- List of film formats
- German inventors and discoverersGerman inventors and discoverersThis is a list of German inventors and discoverers. The following list comprises people from Germany or German-speaking Europe, also of people of predominantly German heritage, in alphabetical order of the surname. The main section includes existing articles, indicated by blue links, and possibly...
- German inventions and discoveriesGerman inventions and discoveriesThe following list is composed of items, techniques and processes that were invented by or discovered by people from Germany or German-speaking Europe.-Anatomy:* Ampulla of Vater * Auerbach's plexus * Brodmann's areas * Canals of Hering...