Vitak(1906–1909)

The Vitak was the earliest American film projector targeting the amateur market. Marketed to show reduction prints of commercial shorts originally shot on 35mm, the Vitak film was 11mm wide. The Vitak was designed by Enoch J. Rector, an early cinema technician and inventor who had worked with William K. L. Dickson and the Latham Brothers in the 1890s, who is credited with the development of the large-format 63mm Veriscope camera in 1897. Rector was busy in the first decade of the 1900s, as he also developed the Ikonograph home projector for 17.5mm film just prior to the Vitak. The Ikonograph reached the market in 1904–05. 

The Vitak was heavily advertised by the New York Vitak Company in The Talking Machine World between 1906 and 1908. In the trade notices of the July 1906 issue, the Vitak, which also functioned as a stereopticon (magic lantern projector), was promoted as a moneymaker for dealers who could profit “from a steady trade in films, which you can build up as easily as your record business.” Later that year, it was reported in The Talking Machine World that the New York Vitak Company was “overwhelmed” with orders for the Vitak projector. For an outlay of $4, they offered to send a sample machine with one free film to dealers. While the Vitak was heavily advertised, it is probable that only a few projectors were sold, and the promised selection of films was very limited. 

No list of films available for the Vitak projector has surfaced. Given the small capacity of the projector, they were most likely short films. A writeup in a 1906 issue of Talking Machine World describes them for dealers: “These films are of various lengths, and retail at 10 cents per foot. The short ones, 10 to 20 feet [3.05m to 6.10m], are what are called endless; that is, the ends are joined and the pictures can be run for any desired length of time.” 

The Vitak projector was patented in 1907, at the same time that advertisements for the Vitak Company promised a new line of projectors for the home with a projected image between 6 ft and 8 ft (1.83m to 2.44m) and priced between $25 and $35. The advertised machines were “The Home Model”, which looked like an improved version of the early Model A; “The Standard”, which was marketed to churches, schools and clubs, with larger potential audiences than the home; and “The Mirror Vitae”, which was marketed as a professional 35mm projector, which they claim to have “taken over” from Eberhard Schneider, who was active in the manufacture and marketing of early cinema machines in the United States. In 1908, the company was due to show these new products at a convention of machine exhibitors and dealers. However, the Vitak Company filed for bankruptcy in 1909 and the new projectors never hit the market.