Whilst all these various studios were fighting to win the formats wars one man was quietly working away to develop probably the most famous and technically superior system to date. Michael Todd working with the American Optical Company was developing a wide film format that would give the audience the same effect as Cinerama with far less complexity. However, wide film was not a new concept. Paramount, MGM, and Fox had all experimented with film widths from 55mm up to 70mm between 1920 and 1930 but non had been developed on a large scale. This new system was called Todd- AO and remains today as the Rolls Royce of film formats. The image was filmed on specially designed 65mm cameras running at 30 frames per second and transferred to 70mm wide film for release. The extra 5mm being occupied by the six track magnetic sound down each edge of the film. Five channels were behind the screen, the original three of CinemaScope not having enough coverage for the larger picture.
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