Talk:Kinetoscope

Dickson's Nationality

I thought it wouldn't hurt to add the interesting detail that W.K.Dickson was British (born in France to English/Scottish parents), but this has several times been deleted on the basis that his nationality isn't relevant (while Edison's evidently is). Apparently we don't want to make it too obvious that the person most responsible for the development of the kinetoscope wasn't American. 68.44.187.12 (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Edison's actions (from the Cook ref)

The lead paragraph states:

Edison never bothered to apply for international copyright on the device, surmising that it would not stand up in European courts (Cook, 1990).

Should that really be patent instead? I thought copyright was for published works, not invented devices. DMacks 15:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Running times - more info

I have started to read Barry Salt's book Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis, and among some of the early technological developments I've uncovered, Salt cites that the early motion picture film rolls were supplied in quantities of 65 feet by Eastman and 75 feet by Blair. Furthermore, it was possible for the rolls to be made longer by cementing several of them together in the darkroom; however, the unreliability of this method meant that narrative films generally declined to do so, whereas actuality films were more eager to do it for anticipated longer takes. Some of these rolls were cemented together to lengths as long as 1000 feet; the earliest documented usage, though, was for American Mutograph and Biograph in November 1899 for the Jeffries-Sharkey fight. Hope that helps? Girolamo Savonarola 20:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Does Salt ever explicitly state that Eastman or Blair supplied these 65- or 75-foot rolls to Edison? All the main sources (Musser; Robinson; Spehr) describe 50-foot rolls. Though no one explicitly states it, I've been assuming that three of those 50-foot rolls were linked together for the expanded Kinetograph (and then the Kinetoscope) for the Leonard-Cushing fight in June 1894...no source I've seen actually describes a Kinetoscope filmstrip longer than 50 feet (original or spliced) before that occasion.—DCGeist 20:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to go back and check if he explicitly states it in relation to Edison. Unfortunately I'm limited to a special collections non-lend library copy for the moment (until my purchased copy comes through). The other question of note is what capacity did the Kinetograph have for filmstock, and could this be expanded with a separate magazine? Girolamo Savonarola 21:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

All the sources I've read indicate the 35 mm Kinetograph was originally designed for the 50-foot rolls the company first received from Eastman. Not one source describes in exactly what way the Kinetograph's capacity was expanded.—DCGeist 21:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Which reminds me, it would be great to have more info on all of the technical details of the equipment, especially the Kinetograph itself. Again, I've been able to trace down some of this through the Salt book, but on the whole this material tends not to be written about much. The whole reason why I went to Salt's book to begin with is that it's one of the few books about film history predominantly from a technological view. Girolamo Savonarola 21:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I just re-read my research notes. Crucially: "From 1895, rolls were 65 feet from Eastman and 75 feet from Blair." Hope that helps! Girolamo Savonarola 22:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Great. As for technical details on the Kinetograph, as you say, no one really tend to write about it. I've included a link to a patent diagram of the camera in one of the notes, but without direct access to the patent documents themselves, there's hardly anything from authoritative sources to add in terms of technical details.—DCGeist 03:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Carbutt film

I know that I didn't provide references, but there seems to be a common agreement that Carbutt's film was quickly dropped from usage because of stiffness problems which Eastman was able to resolve independently. It seems a crucial point to note, considering the topic and the novelty of the entire field. Girolamo Savonarola 20:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I've looked in vain for any authoritative source that identifies stiffness problems as the reason Carbutt's film was dropped by the Edison lab. Multiple sources describe the issue as the superiority of a filmstrip-based system to the cylinder concept as a whole--see, e.g., Braun (1992), pp. 189-190; Robinson (1997), pp. 27-30; Spehr (2000), p. 7. As for the difficulties with pre-Eastman celluloid film in general, I found an interesting passage in Joseph P. Eckhardt's The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin (Associated University Presses/1997); it mentions a number of problems, but not stiffness (p. 18).—DCGeist 19:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC) [postdated]

I am having difficulties finding precise written references, but some web ones seem to have reasonable bearing. Most notably a quote from Dickson in the 1933 SMPE Journal, excerpted here. PBS also seems to agree, as well as a Cornell tutorial, and Encyclopedia Britannica. I know - not the best of sources - but surely this is strong indication? Obviously the Dickson source is the closest to primary. Anyway, just passing along what I was able to collect. Might have some more details on the camera later this week... Girolamo Savonarola 23:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I have had no trouble believing that Carbutt's sheets were too stiff for some uses; the question, at least the way I'm looking at it, is whether they were too stiff for the uses the Kinetoscope project put them to. I'll take the sources you've come up with one by sort-of-one and purposefully out of order:

(1) The Dickson quote you've located seems clearly to indicate that stiffness wasn't a problem for the Carbutt sheet's application to the prototype cylinder Kinetoscope: "I just slotted the aluminum drum and wrapped a sheet of Carbutt's stiff sensitized celluloid over it. This proved quite satisfactory... The pictures were sharp and good..." Dickson seems to be using "stiff" purely as a description of Carbutt's sheet--not as an identification of a relevant fault. This accords with every published source I've read that specifically discusses the Edison lab's use of the Carbutt film: far from problematic, it was the best of the photographic mediums used with the cylinder prototype. From this perspective, Carbutt's film was dropped as a side effect of abandoning the cylinder approach altogether.

(2) The Cornell and the EB cites you've provided use absolutely identical language--"John Carbutt manufactured the first commercially successful celluloid photographic film in 1888, but it was too stiff for convenient use"--but "neither" (if that's the word in such a case of duplication) specifies for whose convenient use it was too stiff. I think you're absolutely right that Eastman's roll film made Carbutt's sheets generally obsolete in part because of the latters' stiffness, but these sources in no way indicate that this issue pertained to the Kinetoscope project.

(3) PBS comes through! While all available evidence indicates that Carbutt's film worked quite well during the cylinder phase of experimentation, PBS asserts that it was also put to different use: "Instead of using a cylinder, they cut the celluloid into strips, which could then be fed across the focal plane of the camera.... Carbutt's celluloid had the drawback of being stiff (celluloid having first been developed as an ivory substitute), but George Eastman had developed a tougher, lighter and more flexible version of the material exactly when it was needed." I'll go back over the published sources--if we can find a single one that confirms Carbutt's sheets were cut by the Edison lab for use in a camera, we can easily get this issue into the article. If not...we can still figure out a way to touch on it. Best, Dan—DCGeist 05:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Got it. See what you think.—DCGeist 18:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks better to me. Thanks for taking the time to answer that! Girolamo Savonarola 01:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No cross reference to or mention of the Edward H. Amet Magniscope.

I'm not sure if it warrants its own article, but Edward H. Amet produced an actual screen projection system in 1895 with the Magniscope. Also he invented the sprocket feed system that is still used on 35mm film to this day. Amet may have sold his patent to Edison, who then adopted the sprocket feed for use in his cameras, kinetoscopes and projectors. Before then, Edison's film was friction fed and not as reliable.

The Eastman House seems to indicate that he developed a projector as early as 1894, but Who's Who of Victorian Cinema also indicates that he didn't do any work on the projector until 1893 at the earliest; whereas Edison's perforation specification was conceptualized as early as 1889. Sprocket/perf systems also can be traced back to at least 1888, which makes the claim somewhat dubious. Can you point to any documentation regarding Amet's relations with Edison? I don't know the history of the film projector well enough, but given the field, it would seem likely that there were several competing projection inventors contemporary if not antecedent to Amet. Girolamo Savonarola 01:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

FA

I've just chanced across this article and couldn't believe it didn't have a star. In my opinion, this is a clear FA standard article, and I'd recommend putting up at FAC. Yomangani^talk 11:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and have already discussed this with DCGeist (the primary editor). I believe that he's almost ready, but just wants to finish some cross-referencing of secondary sources for additional bits of info. I have no doubts that this will be nom'd very shortly. Girolamo Savonarola 13:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Kinétograph

Hi, if you need some information more about the Kinétograph, you can see the French article here on the article about fr:Kinétoscope. And if I made some mistakes in English, please tell me where ;-) thanks. Mythe Mythe-discussion 23:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Early Eastman orders

The current diff of the text says that the first order was in Sept 89, followed by another in Feb 90. Spehr, however, says that there were three orders in 89 (Sept - 1 roll, Nov - 6 rolls, Dec - 6 rolls), all for 3/4 inch wide, followed by the February order for 1 inch wide stock. Is the article in error, or did you find a conflicting source? Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No, you're quite right. Correction made.—DCGeist (talk) 19:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Problem (vandalism?) I can't fix

Hello. I came to this article because it's today's featured article. At the end of the first paragraph in the Development section, I am seeing the word stuff by itself. It looks like this:

In March 1889, a second caveat was filed, in which the proposed motion picture device was given a name, Kinetoscope, derived from the Greek roots kineto ("movement") and scopos ("to view"). stuff

I thought this was vandalism and was going to remove it, but when I edit the section, I don't see the word there. I don't know where it's coming from. Can someone more technically proficient than me take a look? Thanks. --Tkynerd (talk) 17:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)