Chronophone

File:Projecteur Gaumont 35 mm CNAM-IMG 0559.jpg

The Chronophone is an apparatus patented by Léon Gaumont in 1902 to synchronise the Cinématographe (Chrono-Bioscope) with a disc Phonograph (Cyclophone) using a "Conductor" or "Switchboard". This sound-on-disc display was used as an experiment from 1902 to 1910. In January 1911, the industrial exploitation started at the Olympia.Letter by Léon Gaumont to Charles Delac, 10 december 1938 Chronophone would show Phonoscènes (an early forerunner of music videos) and films parlants ("Talking Films") almost every week from 1911 until 1917 at the Gaumont Palace, "the Greatest Cinema Theatre in the World", previously known as the Paris Hippodrome.

A later version of the Chonophone was known as a Chronomegaphone.

A Chronophone is preserved in the collection of the Musée des Arts et Métiers,{{Cite web |date=2016-05-21 |title=Nuit européenne des musées {{!}} musée des Arts et Métiers |url=https://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/nuit-europeenne-des-musees |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=www.arts-et-metiers.net |language=fr}} another is in the collection of the George Eastman Museum,{{Cite web |title=Elgéphone projector and grammophone, 1908 (projector) |url=https://collections.eastman.org/objects/51314/elgephone-projector-and-grammophone}}{{Cite web |title=Elgéphone projector and grammophone, 1908 (audio section) |url=https://collections.eastman.org/objects/637084/elgephone-projector-and-grammophone |website=George Eastman Museaum}} and a Chromomegaphone is owned by Gaumont.

In the United States, the early rival of the Chronophone was the Cameraphone,{{Cite book |last=Altman |first=Rick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MUA3uwBCf6YC&dq=%22E.+E.+Norton%27s+Cameraphone%22&pg=PA163 |title=Silent Film Sound |date=2004 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-11663-3 |pages=163 |language=en}} which included a Graphophone with a type of mechanical sound amplifier known as a Higham-A-Phone reproducer.{{Cite web |title=Moving Pictures That Talk - Part 4 |url=https://filmsound.org/ulano/talkies4.htm |access-date=2024-04-17 |website=filmsound.org}}{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9PYd_29PhU |title=The First Power Amplified Talking Machine to market |language=en |access-date=2024-04-17 |via=www.youtube.com}}{{Cite journal |last=DeFeis |first=Doug |date=April 1993 |title=Lights! Cameraphone! Action! - The Early sound movies of Norton, Whitman, & Fitch |url=https://archive.org/details/APM11_1/mode/2up |journal=Antique Phonograph Monthly |volume=XI -1 |issue=89 |pages=1, 3–11 |via=Internet Archive}}

File:Musée des Arts et Métiers - Chronophone de Léon Gaumont (37545907542).jpg