question: Why do the videos from the early 1900's look like they are being played at 2.5x speed?
comment: The original hand cranked cameras like the pathé and the bell & Howell 2709 had what was called an 8:1 gear ratio, which meant for every 360 degree crank it would produce 8 frames. There was a song that cameramen would sing as they handcranked, which would result in about two revolutions per second - 16 frames. It would fluctuate, obviously, and sometimes cameramen would deliberately change their cranking speed depending on the scene. Projectors were also handcranked in the early days, and the projectionist would change his/her speed depending on the scene. With the advent of sound, the speed of recording /playback was deliberately changed to 24 frames per second to help with the fidelity of sound. A proper silent film should be played back at 16/18 frames per second, and some criterion versions were transferred that way.
passages: The use of different camera speeds also appeared around 1900 in the films of Robert W. Paul and Hepworth. Paul shot scenes from "On a Runaway Motor Car through Piccadilly Circus" (1899) with the camera turning very slowly. When the film was projected at the usual 16 frames per second, the scenery appeared to be passing at great speed. Hepworth used the opposite effect in "The Indian Chief and the Seidlitz Powder" (1901). The Chief's movements are sped up by cranking the camera much faster than 16 frames per second. This gives what we would call a "slow motion" effect.
   BULLET::::- Raoul Grimoin-Sanson also creates a sensation at the 1900 World Fair with his multi-projector Cinéorama spectacle, which uses ten 70 mm projectors to create a simulated 360-degree balloon ride over Paris. The exhibit is closed before it formally opens, however, due to legitimate health and safety concerns regarding the heat of the combined projectors ons, and releases the format as La Petite.
  
  BULLET::::- Gaumont-Demeny release their own 15 mm amateur format, Pocket Chrono.
   BULLET::::- Widescope (US 1921 /1927?) 57 mm, twin-lens camera, rotating lens; the split film was screened in 2 projectors
  
  BULLET::::- "Niagara Falls" (US 1923) Essanay, George K Spoor/P John Berggren, short, tinted or toned - Natural Vision = 63 mm (63,5 mm?), 1.73:1, 6 perf., separate 35 mm soundtrack, other screenings in 35 mm Magnascope
  
  BULLET::::- Tri-Ergon: German company, 42 mm 1924, New York
  
  BULLET::::- "Rollercoaster Ride" (US 1926) short - Natural Vision
   In the early 1960s, a new filming and projection standard of 18 frames per second was introduced, although many cameras and projectors included a multi-speed facility.
   In 1924, Western Electric had settled on 24 frames per second (90 feet per minute) as the standard film speed for both the sound-on-disc and optical sound systems it was developing. Western Electric's ERPI division dominated the theater hardware market when the sound revolution finally got underway, so its new standard speed was universally adopted by Fox and all the other studios as each began making sound films. (See the Fleischer cartoon "Finding His Voice" (1929), credited to Mr. W. E. Erpi.) As a consequence, Case's tests and DeForest's early Phonofilms, shot at about 21 frames per second, gave speakers and singers laughably high-pitched "helium voices" if they were run on a standard sound projector. The Library of Congress and other film archives have printed new copies of some early Phonofilms, modifying them by periodically duplicating frames and correspondingly "stretching" the soundtracks to make them compatible with standard projectors and telecine equipment.
   BULLET::::- "Campus Sweethearts" (US 1930 RKO, J Leo Meehan, 27 min, only shown at State Lake, Chicago - Natural Vision (also 35 mm)
  
  BULLET::::- "Danger Lights" (US 1930) RKO, George B Seitz, 87 min, (short?) (only shown at State Lake, Chicago?) - Natural Vision (also 35 mm)
  
  BULLET::::- Fox 50 mm Wide Screen: ca 1930 4 perf, 1.77:1
  
  BULLET::::- "A Soldier's Plaything" (US 1930) Michael Curtiz, 57 min; - Vitascope = Warner 1931, 65 mm, 2.25:1, 5 perf. separate soundtrack, (also 35 mm released 1931 May 71 min)
   A small number of shorts and features were produced in 70m wide Fox Grandeur. These included several issues of Fox Movietone News called "Fox Grandeur News" first shown May 26, 1929. Features shot in Grandeur include "Fox Movietone Follies of 1929", the musical "Happy Days" (1929), directed by Benjamin Stoloff, "Song o’ My Heart" (1930), a musical feature starring Irish tenor John McCormack and directed by Frank Borzage ("Seventh Heaven," "A Farewell to Arms"), and the Western "The Big Trail" (1930), directed by Raoul Walsh, in which John Wayne played his first starring role.
   The use of different camera speeds also appeared around 1900. Robert Paul's "On a Runaway Motor Car through Piccadilly Circus" (1899), had the camera turn so slowly that when the film was projected at the usual 16 frames per second, the scenery appeared to be passing at great speed. Cecil Hepworth used the opposite effect in "The Indian Chief and the Seidlitz powder" (1901), in which a naïve Red Indian eats a lot of the fizzy stomach medicine, causing his stomach to expand and then he then leaps around balloon-like. This was done by cranking the camera faster than the normal 16 frames per second giving the first "slow motion" effect.
   Despite the common appellation of "Speed Graphic", various Graphic models were produced between 1912 and 1973. The authentic Speed Graphic has a focal plane shutter that the Crown Graphic and Century Graphic models lack. The eponymous name "speed" came from the maximum speed of 1/1000 sec. that could be achieved with the focal plane shutter. The Speed Graphic was available in 2¼ x 3¼ inch, 3¼ x 4¼ inch, 5 x 7 inch and the most common format 4 x 5 inch. Because of the focal plane shutter, the Speed Graphic can also use lenses that do not have shutters (known as barrel lenses).
   E & H T Anthony, a camera maker based in New York, marketed in 1898 a combination motion picture camera and projector called "The Spiral" that could capture 200 images arranged in a spiral on an 8 inch diameter glass plate. When played back at 16 frames per second, it would give a running time of 13 seconds.
   As 'Video Yesteryear', they are best known for presenting silent films and slower speeds than a standard 16mm projector would normally show, bringing the early films closer to their silent film running time. This process was known as Video Accu-Speed and described as a "prism optical" process. It unfortunately had the effect of making the film darker the closer it got to the edges. Their silent film releases also included original organ scores composed and performed by Rosa Rio (1902–2010), who had been a theatre organist during the silent era.
  
  The company was purchased by Audio Book Club in 1998.
   BULLET::::- "Happy Days" (US 1930 Febr 13) Benjamin Stoloff, 86 min - Fox Grandeur
  
  BULLET::::- "Niagara Falls" (US 1930 Febr 13) 1 reel, from footage for Fox Grandeur News - Fox Grandeur
  
  BULLET::::- "Song o' My Heart" (US 1930 March 11) Frank Borzage - Fox Grandeur
  
  BULLET::::- "The Big Trail" (US 1930 Oct 24) Raoul Walsh, 158 min - Fox Grandeur, converted to 35 mm scope in 1985, also German and French 35 mm versions: Die grosse fahrt and La piste des géants (P Couderc)
   Section::::Famous users.
  
  Perhaps the most famous Speed Graphic user was New York City press photographer Arthur "Weegee" Fellig, who covered the city in the 1930s and 1940s.
  
  Barbara Morgan used a Speed Graphic to photograph Martha Graham's choreography.
  
  In the 1950s and 1960s,the iconic photo-journalists of the Washington Post and the former Washington Evening Star shot on Speed Graphics exclusively. Some of the most famous photographs of this era were taken on the device by the twin brothers, Frank P. Hoy (for the Post) and Tom Hoy (for the Star).
   Silent films usually were not projected at constant speeds, but rather were varied throughout the show at the discretion of the projectionist, often with some notes provided by the distributor. This was more a function of hand-cranked projectors than the silence. When the electric motor supplanted hand cranking in both movie cameras and projectors, a more uniform frame rate became possible. Speeds ranged from about 18 frame/s on up – sometimes even faster than modern sound film speed (24 frame/s).
   BULLET::::- Pinking shears are a type of scissors that have blades of which are sawtoothed instead of straight. Used to cut woven cloth, pinking shears leave a zigzag pattern instead of a straight edge. The earliest patent for pinking shears was U.S. patent #489,406 which was issued to Louise Austin of Whatcomb, Washington on January 3, 1893.
  
  Early 1890s Phantoscope
  
  BULLET::::- A film projection machine created by Charles Francis Jenkins in the early 1890s. Jenkin's machine was the first projector to allow each still frame of the film to be illuminated long enough before advancing to the next frame sequence.
   Filming of "The Big Trail" began in April 1930. The film was shot simultaneously in Grandeur and conventional 35mm movie film. Both versions survive, and differ significantly in composition, staging and editing. When the film was released, the only theaters equipped with the Grandeur projectors and screen were Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles and the Roxy Theatre in New York City.
   BULLET::::- "You're in the Army Now" (US 1929) July 18 in New York, only screening, Joseph Stanley, 2 reels - Magnafilm/Magnifilm Paramount 1929, Lorenzo del Riccio, 56 mm, 1.85:1 (ca 2.20:1?), 4 perf. (also 35 mm for cropping 1.85:1 with Magnascope)
  
  BULLET::::- "Fox Grandeur News" (US 1929 Aug 25) 1 reel - Fox Grandeur = Fox 1929-31, oversized soundtrack, experiment only with Perspecta-type directional sound, 2.13:1, 4 perf., Mitchell-camera (also 35 mm shown in Magnascope)
  
  BULLET::::- "Fox Movietone Follies of 1929" (US 1929 May 29) David Butler, Marcel Silver, 80 min - Fox Grandeur (also 35 mm with Technicolor sequence)
   Common length film spools allowed filming of about 3 to minutes at 12, 15, 16 and 18 frames per second.
   Section::::History.:Fox Grandeur.
   Another early practical system for measuring the sensitivity of an emulsion was that of Hurter and Driffield (H&D), originally described in 1890, by the Swiss-born Ferdinand Hurter (1844–1898) and British Vero Charles Driffield (1848–1915). In their system, speed numbers were inversely proportional to the exposure required. For example, an emulsion rated at 250 H&D would require ten times the exposure of an emulsion rated at 2500 H&D.
   The earliest copy belongs to the 1923 NMPFT inventory (frames 118–120 and 122–124), though this longer sequence comes from the 1931 inventory (frames 110–129). According to Adolphe Le Prince who assisted his father when this film was shot in late October 1888, it was taken at 20fps. However, the digitally stabilised sequence produced by the NMPFT lasts two seconds, meaning the footage is playing here at 10fps. As with the "Roundhay Garden" sequence, its appearance is speeded up, suggesting the original footage was probably shot at 7fps. This would fit with what we know of the projection experiments, where James Longley reported a top speed of 7fps.
   2:2 pulldown is also used to transfer shows and films, photographed at 30 frames per second, like "Friends" and "Oklahoma!" (1955), to NTSC video, which has 60 Hz scanning rate.
  
  Although the 4% speed increase has been standard since the early days of PAL and SECAM television, recently a new technique has gained popularity, and the resulting speed and pitch of the telecined presentation are identical to that of the original film.
   Cine film, being commonly available, was also used to record scientific data, such as observations of animal behaviour and human gait. In some cases, such as studies of fluid dynamics, recording was done onto cine film at higher speeds than those used in home movies.
   "Song 'o My Heart" was double-shot in both conventional 35mm and Fox Grandeur, with all action and singing performed separately for the two processes. Production began in November 1929, and the 35mm version debuted on March 11, 1930, in New York. The Grandeur version, however, shipped from the labs on March 17, 1930, was never released and may no longer survive, according to film historian Miles Kreuger.
   1900 in film
  
  The year 1900 in film involved some significant events.
  
  Section::::Events.
  
  BULLET::::- Reulos, Goudeau & Co. invent Mirographe, a 21 mm amateur format.
  
  BULLET::::- The Lumière Brothers premiere their new Lumiere Wide format for the 1900 World Fair. At 75 mm wide, it has held the record for over 100 years as the widest format yet developed.
  