The Polyrhetor—A 150-Channel Film Reproducer

At the New York World's Fair 150 versions of a fifteen-minute story are carefully sorted to bring each to only four persons seated in comfortable chairs on a moving conveyor. — A verbal description of a diorama along the edge of which the conveyor progresses, carefully synchronized with the motion of this conveyor, is given each group of persons and is repeated to each succeeding group with approximately a six-minute lag. In telling the fifteen-minute story, approximately 150 versions are being repeated simultaneously, each version differing only in its starting time. — In considering possible ways of meeting the elaborate requirements established for this sound system, various combinations of disk, film, and steel-tape reproducing apparatus were considered, a novel form of film reproducer being selected primarily on the basis of proved operating reliability over long periods of time. — The Polyrhetor consists essentially of a rotating steel drum eight feet in diameter capable of carrying 24 continuous film loops past 168 optical scanners and associate amplifiers mounted on seven posts equally spaced about the drum. A multiple system of sectionalized trolleys conveys the sound through sliding contactors to small speakers in the cars, around which sufficient acoustical partitioning is provided to avoid Program interference from car to car.

Print ISSN

0097-5834

Published

1939-11

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J11918