A Soundie reel containing a continuous 800 ft. loop of 16 mm film containing 8 three minute performances. Soundies were an early form of music video introduced by the Mills Novelty Co. of Chicago in 1940 for the Mills Panoram, a video jukebox. The film is black & white with optical sound and was rear projected using mirrors onto a ground glass screen. Songs were filmed with the singers and instrumentalists lip-syncing or miming the performance, which were separately recorded—often days earlier and sometimes by different performers. New reels with eight new songs were delivered every week. For 10 cents, you saw whatever performance happened to be next on the reel.

The technology was a challenge: Mills spent much of the 1930s developing a machine that could run unattended in a bar or arcade and have the movies changed once a week—not an easy accomplishment. The projector itself was a modified RCA projector. By 1943, there were 10,000 machines in the United States. They cost USD 600 and the reels were rented for USD 10 per week. In spite of their popularity, by 1947 Mills stopped selling the machines and recording came to an end (Candor 2023).

In the 1960s, Mills Panoram machines were often converted for use as peepshows. The glass screen was replaced by a wooden panel with a binocular peep hole. Ironically, the movies were projected without sound.