Vitaphone - The Vitaphone Project

The Vitaphone Project

A coalition of hobbyists, collectors and professional archivists, founded in the 1990s and known as "The Vitaphone Project", has been working to restore long-unseen Vitaphone productions. Its members track down mute picture elements and their corresponding Vitaphone discs, often found in widely separated locations, then use the latest image and sound transfer technology to produce new 35 mm sound-on-film prints that can be shown with ordinary modern projectors.

In the case of some titles that already existed as sound-on-film prints, those prints, many in the inferior 16 mm format, were made long ago using source elements that were incomplete or in poor condition, primitive transfer equipment, and often a minimum of care, so that new restorations have been warranted. When in good condition and played correctly, original Vitaphone discs commonly yield much better audio than the optical soundtracks of old transfers. In some instances superior picture elements are also now available.

To date, the Project has restored more than 50 Vitaphone shorts from the sound-on-disc era, featuring many stars of 1920s vaudeville, radio, and the concert stage.