With the arrival of sound
recording techniques, in 1930 a
second watershed event took
place which was the advent of
tungsten filament bulbs. These
were usually used in homes,
replacing the arc bulbs because
of their silent operation.

Projectors were thus developed
having Fresnel concentrator lenses, which went on to become a permanent feature of film and television sets.

Also the revolutionary quartz bulbs of 1959 used the consolidated apparatus.

These still had a tungsten filament
which survived inside a quartz
bulb (to give a higher performance consistency) and having a halide, which rebuilt it without dispersing it onto the bulb. These solutions
contributed to much reducing
the size of lighting apparatus.

The 1990s saw the reappearance of common neon tubes, renewed in their characteristics and in a colourcorrected version to meet the
lighting needs of film and television shooting.

With enhanced film and video
sensitivity becoming available,
these lamps partly solved the issue of “suitable light matched with low energy levels”.

The 1970s brought gas discharge lamps using mercury and halogen and rare earths, all producing luminescence and making a substantial contribution to the
development cinematography
and television.

After the initial phase of adaptation and acceptance by the lighting engineers these lamps produced a suitable light which was long-lasting, gave 5,500°K colour matching and a constant colour and flux.

Today, for the first time, the
previous equation seeks a
balance between light yield and
acceptable energy consumption
with the latest revolution: the
high-power, colour-consistent
light provided by LEDs.