[78-L] Help Identifying a 78

[Chris Zwarg]

At 21:30 01.11.2008, you wrote:
> 
>The 'Synchrodiscs' used by Messter/Duskes were 24" in diameter. Have those  
>been found and used in any restorations?
>
>Allen

Where have you got that bit of wisdom from? (serious question!) Literally hundreds of Messter, Duske, and Gaumont discs exist in collections, and they are all of perfectly ordinary 12-inch (30cm) diameter, except for those Messter films that used commercial Gramophone Co. discs which of course were often 10-inch. Neither has any "phonoscene" film element be found whose playing time would have exceeded the not-quite 5 minutes possible on a 12-inch 78rpm disc.

The largest discs I have ever heard of as actually *existing in collections today* are 20-inch Pathés which however AFAIK were not usually used for film-sync purposes, although Pathé made a filmed version of their 1912 abridged recording of Verdi's "Il Trovatore" (aka "Le Trouvère") which *might* have employed 20-inch discs, but more likely used the 14-inch format in which the recording was also offered to the public. Note that the Pathé 20-inchers didn't offer longer playing time over their smaller counterparts, but were *louder* because of their very wide and heavily modulated grooves, coupled with an incredible 120rpm playback speed.

Chris Zwarg