“But Music? That’s Another Story”: The Rapid Rise and Fall of Vitaphone

Written for Sarah Cunningham’s Introduction to Audio Preservation & Reformatting course, “But Music? That’s Another Story” engages with the history of Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone film disc-based sound system, the first popular film sound system, and the efforts to preserve the surviving discs. In explicating the Vitaphone narrative, I demonstrate both a technical understanding of media playback and also an understanding of the history of media preservation in the United States.

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