Movie copyrights - roman numerals

[Martin Brooks]

By all accounts, Henri Chrétien invented Anamorphoscope in 1926 and tried to get the studios interested, but no one was. What's puzzling is why he didn't provide enough modifications to the system to maintain new patents. But Fox paid him anyway, because they bought his lenses, although I've never seen documented exactly how much. He died in February of 1956 at 87, only 2 1/2 years into the release life of Cinemascope.

[Gordon McLeod]

The only problem with Roman Numerals is that they don’t have the number zero. Without a zero, you lose the concept of shifting digits to the left, making arithmetic significantly more difficult.

Unrelated, 20th Century Fox did not invent anamorphic (CinemaScope) lenses. It is a French invention that Fox bought the rights. Like all successful inventions it solved a need at the time, which was to present a bigger higher resolution image than spherical lens of the 1950’s could produce.

Actually they bought the rights to something that was no longer patented and the persion they delt with Chretien was only one of several makers of anamorphic lens the CinePanoramic was pre dateing the Cscope lens that fox bought and they went on to be used by Republic as Naturama and in france as DyliaScope and HammerScope/MegaScope in the UK

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

The only problem with Roman Numerals is that they don’t have the number zero. Without a zero, you lose the concept of shifting digits to the left, making arithmetic significantly more difficult.

Unrelated, 20th Century Fox did not invent anamorphic (CinemaScope) lenses. It is a French invention that Fox bought the rights. Like all successful inventions it solved a need at the time, which was to present a bigger higher resolution image than spherical lens of the 1950’s could produce.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The US copyright office requires Roman numerals. So that makes it a hold over from Demetrus Zanuks 20th Century Roman Studios. That place they invented the CinemaStink wide screen process....

[Marcel Birgelen]

I always thought these look cool

https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Power...dp/B000YHO28U/

Next up: Movie copyrights in barcode?

[Leo Enticknap]

Apparently not - the copyright date on BBC programmes was only introduced in the early 1970s.

Oh well - that buggers that theory!

[Bobby Henderson]

I learned Roman numerals as a kid, because we had a large antique clock that belonged to my grandparents which had Roman numerals on the face.

When I was a kid I went through a phase where I was interested in Roman numerals, learning all the rules in how they worked. Today I have a bit of a cheat. A commercial type family I use pretty frequently called Vito has a pretty large OpenType character set, including Roman numerals as an alternative to regular numerals. I'm pretty sure it's the only type family I've encountered that can generate such a thing. Just type out a number in the normal manner, then select it and apply the Roman numerals character set.

[Allan Young]

If it was Lord Reith who first imposed that rule, that would explain a lot. He was anxious to portray the BBC as a highbrow, nonpolitical, "public service"

Apparently not - the copyright date on BBC programmes was only introduced in the early 1970s. In fact, it was initially in Arabic numerals before switching to Roman a few years later.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

His nick name must have been "Quad"

[Jim Cassedy]

Amusing Roman numeral anecdote: I used to know a guy whose legal name was 'Charles Thorp, the 4th" , which he would write and sign his name as "Charles Thorp IV" - - I saw a pile of his junk mail once, and almost all of it was addressed to "Charles Thorpiv"

[Leo Enticknap]

As far as I'm aware, the Romans did not produce any top rank mathematicians. Engineers, politicians, writers, architects, absolutely, but I can't think of any mathematicians. The Greeks, on the other hand, produced Pythagoras, Euclid ... you name 'em. One has to wonder if the Romans' method of recording numbers worked for everyday purposes, but held them back when it came to higher level stuff.

[Frank Cox]

I always thought these look cool

https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Power...dp/B000YHO28U/

[Jim Cassedy]

I learned Roman numerals as a kid, because we had a large antique clock that belonged to my grandparents which had Roman numerals on the face. Once I knew the basics, I became quite good at decoding those copyright dates. I once had a supposed "film expert" tell me that Roman numerals were put on films so that when people watched them on TV, they wouldn't be aware they were watching a really old movie. This, of course, makes no sense, since studios were using Roman numerals on films long before TV became a reality. A friend has similar experiences and we often use R-n's when we text each other. I used to have a NIXIE tube digital clock and you could switch the output to display the time in Roman numerals. In the 1980's I also recall seeing a pocket calculator that could do calculations in R-n's. (And if you want to have math-geeky fun, there are several online calculators that will do the same thing)

[Leo Enticknap]

If it was Lord Reith who first imposed that rule, that would explain a lot. He was anxious to portray the BBC as a highbrow, nonpolitical, "public service" (I use that term in quotations, because a lot of the public didn't want it then, and still don't now) broadcaster, and to ensure that commercial radio and television never became established in the UK. He didn't entirely win that fight (though commercial broadcasting in the UK is far more heavily regulated and restricted than it is in most other countries, apart from dictatorships), but projecting an image of elitism, e.g. through the use of dates in Roman numerals, was part and parcel of his strategy. See the movie Radio Parade of 1935 for Will Hay playing a hilarious send-up of Reith, in which he plays the Director-General of the "NBG" (supposedly National Broadcasting Group, but in interwar British slang, the initials were understood to mean no bloody good - the precursor of today's NFG).

[Allan Young]

FWIW, the BBC not only still mandate the use of Roman numerals, they also demand that the corporate font is used...

The year of the first transmission in Roman Numerals in the corporate typeface (BBC Reith)

https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/commissi...dependents.pdf