For these reasons, it was in the economic interest of film producers to find inexpensive ways to bring sound to all films, in the hope that musical accompaniment would increase audience interest in the art form and, subsequently, increase film attendance. While the original intent was to provide synchronized musical accompaniment, it was the potential of synchronized sound systems to play back synchronized speech and dialogue that finally captured the audience's attention.
In 1919 three Germans—Josef Engl, Joseph Masserole, and Hans Vogt—invented the Tri-Egon System, which allowed sound to be recorded directly on film. In this system, a photo-electric cell was used to convert sound waves to electrical impulses, which were then converted to light waves and recorded directly on the strip of film as the soundtrack. A projector equipped with a reader reconverted the light waves to sound for playback, while a special fly-wheel regulated the speed of the playback. This made it possible to have synchronized sound that ran for the entire length of the film.
In America Dr. Lee De Forest (1873-1961) was at work on a synchronized sound system based on the Audion 3-Electrode Amplifier Tube, developed in 1923 to solve the problem of amplification for playback in a large auditorium.
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