The History of Immersive Sound in Cinema - Text 1
It is important to recall here, before any discussion of immersive sound systems, the difficulties encountered by the film industry in obtaining high enough sound quality, meaning sound quality which made it possible to reproduce sound faithfully with acceptable intelligibility from every seat in the theatre. The sound system must be economical and practical. The solution of sound on separate discs, such as the Vitaphone system introduced in 1926 or the 1928 Gaumont-Petersen-Poulsen separate optical sound system, proved to be very expensive and was quickly abandoned by the industry. The solution of a narrow sound track on the same strip of film as the image (inaugurated by the Fox Film Corporation in 1927 with the film Sunrise by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau) became widespread for regular productions, although at the time only a two-strip system provided adequate quality for true immersion in the sound by means of several loudspeakers. In 1934, however, technological progress in sound recording would simplify immersive sound systems, because the conventional sound track (on a strip of film) on exhibition prints worked well. At a certain moment the projectionist simply had to flick a switch, directing the film’s sound to a circuit of amplifiers and loudspeakers at the back of the cinema.
