The Evils of Time-Compression (Sped-up Shows)

Now we need playback speed adjustment on our DVRs...

 

For sure, I've often wondered why the cable-based networks in particular are still mostly intent on clinging to the "It must end at :00 or :30!" mantra. I can understand why the network (and OTA in general) broadcasters would want to try and keep to those boundaries when possible since that's just how it's always been and screwing with timeslots - and particularly local breaks in the process - might not be advisable as an overnight change.. but why is AMC or TNT or TBS or whoever doing it still? In the age of binge-watching and DVRs, I don't think anyone would care if it ends at 3:23 or if it ends at 3:30, just as long as they get to see it. Plus whoever tried it first could boast loudly about having the only uncut episodes on television, sort of in the way FXX did with their uncut Simpsons marathon last year...well, until they went and screwed it up by haphazardly cropping the episodes to 16x9 too, anyway...

 

I don't know if this is quite as bad, but there are a lot of full episodes of the Simpsons on Youtube but they are sped up to be compressed into 15 minutes.

I can't watch them!!

 

Because most of the civilized world follows a schedule based upon hours and half hours.

 

They must have sounded just like the Sex Pistols!!

 

I started collecting pre-owned VHS tapes back in the early 90's and set up a small Pro-Logic home theater. I drifted away from TV and just started watching movies only. Back then, when you picked up a VHS tape of a TV show like Star Trek, the tape would indicate a running time of 52-minutes for that episode. I remember, back in the 60's when people were polled about what they disliked on TV, the #1 answer was the commercials, all 8-minutes of them in prime time.

Fast forward to 2006, where I was staying, had cable, so I took at look at what was playing. The first thing I noticed was, they were interrupting the program all the time for commercials. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how many commercials were playing each hour, I came up with 18-minutes. Over twice as many as when I grew up. For me, most TV shows were bad enough on their own and with the addition of commercials, that was adding insult to injury.

I could not accept the fact that for every two minutes of TV I watched, that I was being subject to almost one minute of commercials.

Sure time compression sucks and it is done in the name of greed. At the same time chopping the viewing experience to the point where there is no continuity makes the viewing experience totally unwatchable. The addition of time compression is like kicking a dead horse.

Today, I provide my guests with satellite TV, the "Ultimate Package" plus HBO & Cinemax, I've never watched any of it. I have a 60" TV in my office, when I'm not watching a movie from a disc, is displaying the content of a cd or the currently playing song from my streaming box.

I was just behind the TV a couple of days back removing old cable that were no longer in use and I noticed the unattached coax connector laying on the floor. For a fraction of a second, I was puzzled, then I remembered, some time back, a guests box went out and I had pulled mine out and gave it to him, I had forgotten that I didn't even have a box attached anymore.

Today, if find listening to music so so much better...

It's hard to put a price on peace of mind.

 

I think there's a place for both. I doubt that I watch more than a dozen hours of TV a week (the national average is more like 3 or 4 hours a day), but I try to be extremely selective in what I watch and what I don't watch. Syndicated shows are cut to ribbons and movies are torn up unless you watch them on pay services like HBO and Showtime. To me, it's just a question of using your time wisely, and not wasting it by watching bad stations showing bad shows.

I totally agree that 20 minutes of commercial time an hour is way too high. The American TV networks are now hovering at around 16.5 minutes of commercials per 1-hour episode of an average show (43.5 minutes running time), and it's interesting to note that ratings have been going down every year for the past 6-7 years. I can't watch any TV anymore unless it's from the DVR, where I can quickly bypass the commercials in about 5 seconds.

 

I never knew this was happening. Weird...

 

I even DVR live programs (sports and news) so that I can give them a head start, skip the commercials, and finish in real time or shortly after. Before HD, I had TiVo for years and did the same thing. And I won't watch classic shows on TV any more, the editing and time compression just ruin it for me.

I 'm the world's worst consumer because I see only a handful of commercials each year. I only saw this year's Super Bowl commercials when @Vidiot posted links here.

 

Yeah, there should be a word for that. Maybe "Time-Chasing?" You could start watching the Super Bowl 2 hours in, skip all the commercials then wind up seeing the last 20 minutes of the game in real time.

Commercials are an acquired taste. But I have to say, I always dug cool commercials, even when I was a kid in the 1960s. Still love certain commercials now... but they're much rarer these days. I'd say about all I slow down for are commercials that look really beautiful, advertise a high-tech product I'm interested in, or movie trailers. Everything else is a blur -- but I've learned to watch stuff at high speed and I'll see pretty much everything there.

 

I rarely watch syndicated re-runs, but I have actually noticed this - mostly on the theme songs (like "Friends" or "Family Guy"). It doesn't sound "sped up" (i.e., at a higher pitch), just compressed, like a frame or two is cut out of each second. I thought I was going nuts, the first few times I heard it.

 

I agree, the commercials that I will stop to watch have something good going for them. But then afterwards, I remember everything about the commercial except for what the product was.

 

There is that problem. Even Stan Freberg wrote and directed a famous commercial for The Great American Soup, and after audiences saw it and were asked the name of the sponsor, they all said, "this was for Campbell's, right?" So that's a case where the commercial was bigger than the brand it was supposed to be advertising.

 

It makes you wonder what the tipping point is, if there is one. Already we have time compression and all sorts of on-screen advertisements and graphics during programs. I notice that TBS always runs the credits from the previous show and opening of the next show in a split screen mode for The Big Bang Theory. All this focused effort to squeeze in more and more commercial time, and yet cable costs keep rising:

http://arstechnica.com/business/201...ces-went-up-four-times-the-rate-of-inflation/

I don't know if anyone watches web videos at news sites, but what a waste of time that would be. You click on a video and commit to watching a 0:30 commercial, and, at best, the story might be mildly interesting.

 

Time compression, sped-up micro credits that are impossible to read, giant "bugs", moving graphics, hashtags, tickers...It's as if the networks/stations want to piss people off and drive viewers away.

 

well at least you see it ! here in Australia they just snip off bits and pieces so they can put more ads in.

 

Just tried to watch The Graduate that I DVR'ed off of Sundance. Ugh! Not only was it sped up, "Sounds of Silence" seemed to vary in speed. I had to delete it.

I'll check the Blu-ray out of the library.

 

Almost never spend more than 45 minutes watching a football game unless it stretches to OT. There's only an hour of playing time and about half of that is devoted to watching the clock tick.

 

I've thought the local radio station was doing this also. Same songs per hiur, more sds.

 

Could you describe what you mean by "your guests"?

 

All they're succeeding in doing is driving me completely away from watching any kind of broadcast TV.

 

What kills me is that the poison has been doled out drops at a time -- the consumers don't even know their thumbs are in the screws because it's happening so gradually.

Remember when cable TV was first pitched back when Carter was president: "You the customer are paying the premium. There will be no need for commercials."

*Now, commercials on cable stations take up just as much if not more than network TV.
*All cable TV shows are pitching commercials for their other shows in the right hand corner of the screen in the middle of other shows.
*More advertising was always supposed to make services cheaper for the consumer, but all that has resulted is more advertising with less content.
*Think about how many TV shows include "review montages" when the program returns from a commercial as though the viewer needs a refresher from events that happened two minutes ago -- more time wasted and an even cheaper and shorter TV show.

I think the only attributes that offset all this is the new "freedom" folks have with TV -- on demand, mobile devices, etc.

 

Really, I thought IFC and Sundance, though now full of commercial breaks, didn't do any creative editing to the programs.

 

I run a small 20-unit motel on Fort Lauderdale beach (the lobby has been converted to my office and audio room).

 

I agree 100%. Broadcasters have got to learn that all this crap -- speeding up programs, constantly barraging us with commercials, shoving promo information into the lower third of the screen -- all these distractions are pushing us away from their services. If we can watch the shows at normal speed, with great quality, no interruptions, and no random graphics on Blu-ray or download, that's a much, much better way to see it.