| The introduction of magnetic sound recording into the broadcasting and motion picture industries is generally assumed to be a post-World War II phenomenon, realized almost exclusively through wartime advancements in German technology. This assumption is true only to a limited extent. This study shows that as early as 1928 magnetic recording had been seriously proposed as an alternative to the disc and optical sound recording processes then revolutionizing film production, while, as a direct result of this early though abortive motion picture application, magnetic recording found extensive use among British and European broadcasters for transcription work. The growth of this broadcast transcription market, for which magnetic recording was ideally suited, drew the interest of mammoth electrical manufacturers, particularly in Germany, signaling the beginning of a period of intensive technical improvement in the process during the 1930s. By the end of that decade German technology had produced the bases for today's magnetic recording equipment and media.;Certain evidence suggests that collusion between American telephone and phonograph interests acted to suppress the parallel development of magnetic recording in the United States; however, through a massive, concerted effort by the allied forces during and after World War II, German magnetic recording technology (as well as virtually every other aspect of German technical progress) was quickly appropriated by and diffused throughout American industry. American radio networks, traditionally opposed to transcription, implemented magnetic recording for programming flexibility. Hollywood swiftly introduced magnetic recording into feature film and newsreel production as part of an overall cost-cutting program, prompted by major economic problems threatening the industry. However, magnetic recording found its fullest application in film production among the many small American film production firms seeking to fill the burgeoning demand for educational, industrial, and, especially, television films after the war, as well as within the decimated film industry of the nation which had first perfected the process' technology, Germany. |
