Site created 12/15/97.		page created: 5/23/02 Home Theater: An Archaeology Part One by Robert Harris, special to The Digital Bits Robert A. Harris - Main Page Since biblical times, mortals have desired to view motion pictures in the privacy of their own homes, to enjoy with family and friends. These early forms of motion pictures (many carved in stone) had the problem of not being particularly portable - and many were silent to boot. And the public was forced to wait for better times, during which technology could catch up with the desire for entertainment. Finally, beginning in the early part of the twentieth century with the formation of studios, the advent of the star system and the birth of Hollywood, those chosen few - studio heads, top stars and the extremely wealthy - began to view motion pictures at home, and the concept of the home theater was born. 35mm projectors were installed in home screening rooms, projectionists were hired to run the equipment and those lucky few were able to entertain their friends and colleagues with first run motion pictures. Note: There have been many superb articles written on the subject of early home cinema. My objective here is simply to make those who are unaware of it… aware. Therefore, I have left out 28mm, 9.5mm, etc. Finally, in or around 1923, with the invention of the 16mm projector, motion pictures began to make their way from the undeniably connected and wealthy, to schools, shut-in situations (hospitals, prisons, etc.), military bases and… Non-theatrical 16mm rental and sale companies. Kodascope prints were created for rental and sale, generally in shortened versions of feature length films - and the people rejoiced. From the 1940s through the early 1980s 16mm prints were produced for varying purposes of virtually every feature film that came out of Hollywood. At first they were printed directly from original 35mm negatives and tracks, but with the rise in popularity in various venues, 16mm prints proliferated, and dupe negatives became the state of the art. 16mm prints become more and more available and collectable to those who desired to actually own sub-standard copies of their favorite films. In some cases 8mm or Super 8mm prints of complete features became available. Probably at least twenty times as many people bought home movie versions in these formats as ever collected them in 16mm. With collecting in full gear in the 1960s and 70s, clean 16mm prints of titles such as East of Eden, Casablanca, Sullivan's Travels and others were available on the collector's market for anywhere from $50-75 for the more common titles to several thousands of dollars if one wanted a dye transfer Technicolor print of The Adventures of Robin Hood, North by Northwest, The Red Shoes, The Searchers or, one of the consummate rarities -- Gone with the Wind. 16 and 35mm film collecting was looked upon by the studios (at least in the past) as a quasi-legal hobby. Few 16mm prints were actually sold by the studios with the exception of some titles from the pre-1949 Warner library. Most of the "legal" prints were gifted to filmmakers for their personal libraries. Because of this, there was a seemingly secret society that surrounded collecting, with everything short of a special handshake and secret rites, in which blood and nitrate film might be combined in a cauldron of steaming oil. Taking up great amounts of space and costing tens of thousands of dollars, these film collections, along with collections based on the 35mm and 70mm formats are still very much a part of the playground of a tiny part of the population which loves film and takes it very seriously. These prints could be run in their proper screen proportions or formats - 1.37:1, 1.66, 1.75, 1.85 or CinemaScope and Panavision anamorphic widescreen of 2.35 or wider. Then in the early 1970s something new emerged. Video tape recorders. Originally available in ¾ inch format from Sony and others, and with a tape length topping out at 60 minutes, one could tape their favorite films from television - commercials and all for about $75 -100 per title. And what one was able to place upon one's shelf was a low quality broadcast version with cuts, edits, time compression and of course, only pan and scan versions of the newer wide screen releases. Nearly concurrent with ¾" units, Sony's first ½" recorders appeared on the scene. First recording only black and white and then in color, these machines would enable one to again record off the air to a 60-minute reel to reel tape and start a library. The Betamax arrived not long after and some astute studios realized that there might be a market for people that, for whatever reason, wanted to watch not only old films but newer titles at home. And whatever master tapes happened to be lying around were used to create something called "home videos." Quality was generally abysmal, and one was basically purchasing the same old transfer than was used for broadcast - only now without commercials; generally without cuts; but most definitely in pan and scan and mono sound. As I understand it, Sony owned the patents to Beta, and not wishing to have others produce Beta machines and tapes and thereby share the marketplace, they held onto their little piece of the world - Beta - which was a rather high quality piece of equipment. But where did this leave everyone else? Out of the marketplace. And VHS was born - a lower quality system for the masses. But VHS had certain, very positive attributes, among which were the ability to record in a 120-minute (or longer) format, greater availability and lower prices than Betamax. It caught on. Suddenly small mom and pop rental stores began to appear across the landscape of America. Where one might previously have a small selection of Beta tapes, the availability of titles skewed more and more toward VHS until Beta was pulled. And again, one could purchase or rent a reasonably mediocre video copy derived from whatever master happened to be lying around. And then a new invention appeared. Fronted by IBM, Magnavox and Universal, the first high quality home theater device - the laserdisc. Originally set to sell for $10 - 25 dollars a title, usually based upon the number of sides, one could now purchase (or rent) titles like The Blues Brothers, Psycho, Frankenstein and other Discovision releases - if they could get them to play. Produced under less than perfect conditions the typical 4-6 sided set of discs would normally not play on all sides. If one tried hard and bought multiple copies, eventually a set could be put together for which all sides would play reasonably well - of course in pan and scan, but now with analogue two track audio. After a short period, the quality of the discs became better, problems were worked out and the CLV format was born. This enabled viewing of almost one hour per side. One still had to turn the disc and once over 118 minutes, go to a second disc. But it worked, and some masters were produced which had not just been lying around. And then came CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc System) from RCA. At just short of two pounds per disc, this encapsulated "high tech" phonograph record provided an alternative at a lower quality than laserdisc, with the addition of more video noise. These actually had a needle contacting a groove; a concept that went back almost a century. The Criterion Collection was born on laserdisc in the early 1980s with an interesting concept. Create high quality new transfers from superior film elements and give the public something more. A special edition. Widescreen versions of films were made available with commentary tracks and additional pictorial material. A superb new format had been created. People began to collect laserdiscs. The quality got progressively better along with new masters. There were problems with laser rot and the picture was still analogue, which meant that it included video noise. And yet the system worked. Lasers and their respective players evolved. More films became available in wide screen based upon new transfers. Audio progressed from the initial mono and CX encoded to two-track Dolby - which needed a processor to decode; to early digital tracks (which of course necessitated a new player); to DTS audio (which of course necessitated a new player). But they never really seemed to catch on with the general public. About 1991 another optical variant was the Phillips created CD-i system, offering games, educational media and feature films all conveniently playable on a single unit. The quality was less than wonderful, the games generally of a lower caliber than might be found on competing systems, and the system was added to the garbage heap of technical wizardry than never caught on. And then something interesting occurred. In the mid-1990s one began to hear mumblings of a strange compressed CD format to be called DVD. A single disc could contain 135 minutes of information. Warner Brothers seemed to be taking the lead under the guidance of Warren Lieberfarb. Universal set up a special experimental compression center in Universal City. Sometime during the period when Jim Katz and I were working on the restoration of Vertigo, we were invited to the compression center and were able to view some early experimental DVDs. This was probably sometime in 1995-6. The quality was amazing. Based upon brand new transfer picture and audio elements, Universal had created extremely high quality transfers and pressed them to DVD. And yet, the feeling was that this was another potentially high-end system that would interest the mega-users of high-end hardware. It could be a decade before the general public had any interest. What occurred next must have surprised virtually everyone. Robert Harris --- Don't forget - you can CLICK HERE to discuss this article with Robert and other home theater enthusiasts online right now at The Home Theater Forum. On to Part Two Robert A. Harris - Main Page
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