Friends (TV Series) on Nick at Nite on right now - is it sped up???

I'm watching Friends on Nick At Nite and it is really sped up! Are they doing this to squeeze more commercials in? They sound like cartoon characters. This is just wrong. Anyone know?

 

Yes, they are doing that to squeeze more commercials in.

 

Plus I think they have brickwalled it!!

 

Sadly; that's pretty common when shows get syndicated.

 

There really shouldn't be any change in vocal pitch, if the lexiconing was done correctly. FRIENDS episodes have been "time compressed" since the late 90's, when they first went into syndication. It mentions the time compression on the slates preceding the show, IIRC. People look creepy moving around in a juddery way in these episodes. I avoid them.



Dan

 

If they get it down to about 30 seconds I'd be much closer to making it through an entire episode

 

The first episode I saw I feel like I was watching an overdubbed Japanese film. The vocal pitch was so off. The next one was a little bit better but not by much. I haven't noticed this on Everybody Loves Raymond reruns when I was watching those a couple years back. Could they do this to an older sitcom like I Love Lucy or is it just the modern ones that can be done like this? I'd rather have them just edit more content out then do this!

 

I saw a bit of the first episode they aired on Nick @ Nite and their lips were about 2 seconds behind what their characters were actually saying. At first I thought they legitimately were parodying Japanese monster movies as part of some sort of joke on the show. It was very, very noticeable.

 

Technically, it can be done to anything. Whether or not it is done is a matter of legality. The producers of some shows absolutely freak out if you touch a frame of their video, while others will sign off on minor changes. Really, the lexiconing process has pitch-shifting programs that should actually lower the pitch as the show is sped up, thereby leaving the creepy movement and retaining the original vocal sound. I think it looks and sounds like crap. Completely unwatchable.


Dan

 

I have been very sensitive to time-compression for years, but the Friends ep on I saw on Nick Saturday night did not look compressed at all...perhaps it was only done on some eps.

The big news for me however was that the show was finally in true HD, which I hadn't seen before. Yes, it had been retransfered and cropped like "Seinfeld", but I didn't see any awkward framing.

 

All American shows are sped up like this in NZ.

I watched a few family guy clips on youtube and was suprised how deep the voices sounded to what i was used to on the tv.

 

Yes, but watching film transferred to PAL for decades should have acclimatized you to that.

 

Yup, even NTSC to PAL dvd's have the sound sped up.

Thanks to the stupid PAL conversion, The Surfin' Bird doesn't sound right untill i speed it up to the speed it plays post NTSC to PAL conversion (1.08x in Audacity).

I've been watching old cartoons i remember from when i was younger on the net, and it's also weird hearing the theme tunes at the right speed.

Hell, it's still weird when i hear the Simpsons theme song at the correct speed.

 

Small correction: lots of companies other than Lexicon have pitch-shifting boxes (and software).

But I totally agree that time-compression is an evil, evil process. One thing nobody has mentioned so far is that it completely changes the pace and tempo of the editing, so a lot of subtle nuances and reactions are ruined. Instead of moving like this, it moveslikethis. I've seem demos where they've shown time compression up to 10% (!!!), and it's just horrendous.

Visually, it also introduces a bit of judder (horizontal stuttering) in fast-moving motion. It depends on the specific speeds they choose, but this can get really, really bad. A 4% time-compression -- 24fps to 25fps -- is not so awful. Much more than that, you really start to see it. I agree with Matt and Nosticker: it's really unwatchable, especially for anybody who's in the least bit aware of film and video. I bet even non-technical people would watch it and say, "there's something wrong with this, but I'm not sure what."

These cable channels have got to stop being so damned greedy. Just cut a minute or two out of the show, and leave the speed alone. Or show it in a 35-minute timeslot. Who the hell cares? It's cable!

Yep, Paramount went back to the original 35mm negatives and re-transferred and re-mastered all the old Cheers shows and conformed them all in HD. They created both a 4x3 HD and a 16x9 HD version, and also kept the original scans for archival use. The 16x9's were "tilt & scanned," so technically, you're losing about 15% of the image at the bottom -- cutting the actors off at the shins. Done well, you shouldn't notice it too much. And the picture quality looks much, much, much better than the original 1980s versions.

 

Nearly all American TV shows are sped-up in PAL regions. It's ridiculous though that there are still some that are simply time-compressed (resulting in chipmunk voices) rather than pitch-shifted, which anyone can do on their home computer these days. CSI, for example.

 

ummm...I was referring to "Friends"

 

The Friends 35 mm masters are apparently 15:9, which is why there is very minimal cropping on the new HD transfers. They've been showing in Australia and Germany for a while and begin showing on Comedy Central HD in the UK on 01/10/2011.

 

What's the liklihood of BLU TV season boxes being released for Friends/Cheers/Seinfeld? I think Seinfeld was also done in HD from original elements. What about Frasier? That 70's Show?

 

They might be sped up, and perhaps the version is shorter, straight from the source.

The shorter versions of the episodes have a name, "full" something.

 

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Nick at Night used to be such a good network. Not anymore.

They lost me about 7 years ago with their butchering of
"The Adventures Of Superman".
Not only were the programs sped-up, but whole scenes were cut out.
Episodes that first clocked in at 25and a half minutes were now 19 minutes.

Just awful.
There is nothing on Nick at Night that I watch these days.

But its not just NaN, but most cable outlets have no respect for their programing or their viewers.

 

Is ME-TV also time compressing the half-hour episodes or just the 60 minute shows?

 

Wow. I happened to stumble on Nick showing Friends this afternoon. Everyone's voice is so much higher in pitch that the only people I can imagine who could enjoy watching this are people who have no idea what these actors actually sound like.

 

I noticed this with Joey especially. At least these are uncut. Unfortunately they run over their allotted times in the schedule guide, so DVR recording is an adventure. Nice to see them in "HD" though.

 

Well, the last one you mentioned is on the way:
http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/70s-Blu-ray-Disc-Plans/16095