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Trimming Television to Sell More Ads
Posted by
michael
on Sun Jan 27, 2002 09:49 PM
from the blood-from-a-stone dept.
from the blood-from-a-stone dept.
gambit3 writes: "Tech TV has an article about a device called a "Digital Time Machine", that does something called "Time Trimming", which is basically a way to cut single frames from different scenes in TV programs, which, over the course of a 30 minute program, can add up to 30 seconds, which is, incidentally, the perfect length to add ANOTHER commercial."
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Trimming Television to Sell More Ads
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Sounds like "Cash" on radio (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like "Cash" on radio (Score:5, Informative)
There are several reasons he doesn't like it. First, in order for it to work, the program has to be buffered into the machine, which means it isn't live anymore. Second, listeners complained that it was too hard to listen to because natural pauses are eliminated.
Also, it wasn't his network that was doing it; it was individual radio stations, at least that's my understanding.
Re:Sounds like "Cash" on radio (Score:5, Funny)
<audio style="rush-limbaugh-voice">
Rush Limbaugh doesn't like it. Folks, I can't believe the... the... the.. gall this guy has. People, I can't emphasize this enough: The radio stations are there to make money for Clear Channel stockholders, not as some charity to provide the best possible experience for Rush's listeners.
Look, folks, if Rush doesn't want this technology applied to his show, he's free to negotiate a contract with the radio stations that enforces his wishes. Anybody in this great country of ours can negotiate any contract they want. I hope that he's not going to try to get the government weenies at the FCC to meddle with the radio stations' livelyhoods.
Sheesh. Sometimes, I just don't know. We'll be back after this...
<riff genre="80's rock">
</audio>
Re:Sounds like "Cash" on radio (Score:5, Insightful)
His complaining is no hypocrisy. Now if he sought the creation of some kind of government program to remedy a free market assault on the quality of his show - that would be hypocrisy.
Re:Sounds like "Cash" on radio (Score:4, Interesting)
Any other medium, I would agree, but those airwaves belong to the people, friend. If they are going to take them away from us, they had better provide a little quality...
Another technique used.... (Score:5, Interesting)
One poster mentioned that this could be used on commercials, thus giving space for more commercials, but this technique would not be allowed. The contracts (at least those that I have seen) stipulate that such measures cannot be taken during their commercials, but that is not usually the case for music.
I worked in the IT department of a local radio network that owned several local stations (I left when Clear Channel bought them out) for a couple of years.
Re:Yep nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
Many years ago you would offten find M*A*S*H running at one of the time slots between the 5:00 and 6:30 news. The reason is that it had so many sub plots they could cut out huge amounts of it. It started out as a 30 minute show and I've seen it run in 1/2 that. I was told that a TV station would get the show from the distributers, it would be sorted by run lenght and so if they ran the news over by 7.5 minutes, they could go pull out a shortend show and then they would be back in time for the all importaint 7:00 primetime network slots. This became very clear when they showed the same epposide two days in a row and they were different cuts.
Re:Yep nothing new (Score:4, Informative)
When you see that "This film has been formatted to fit this screen and edited both for content and to run in the time allotted," the editing to run in the time alotted is not done through some mystical automatic process; it is done by humans deciding which pieces of a film will be cut. Although frames can be trimmed, the removal of words, sentences, and even whole scenes is much more common.
The only "inter-frame interpolation" that occurs in the broadcast of a movie takes place in the conversion of a movie from 24fps to 29.75fps (or 25fps) for playback in NTSC or PAL. This process (called 3:2 or 24:1 pulldown) does not affect the running time of the content.
For what it's worth, I'm a broadcast editor.
-Tom
Re:So what's wrong with this? (Score:5, Offtopic)
The one hour of TV I want to see during the week, and they fill it with redundant lip-flapping that contains no new information. Fucking football.
Re:Just what we need. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article clearly says that it does not pop or chirp, and that over 170 stations are already using it. I mean, if it was poping and chirping first of all everyone would know, and second of all the stations wouldn't use it.
Re:Just what we need. (Score:5, Interesting)
The audio or video quality, no. The dramatic quality (such as it is) is another thing entirely. I don't know if losing one frame out of 44 can really alter our perception of a dramatic pause -- are there any editor/director types who claim that sort of precision? But that's not the issue.
It's another 30 seconds out of 30 minutes that you're not watching the program. It stretches out the commercial breaks by padding them even more. This in turn adds to the break in dramatic continuity and of course makes it even more tempting to just walk away and do something else during the commercial break -- perhaps indeed during the rest of the show.
I mean, I already notice how excruciatingly long commercial breaks are now. It's getting to where you can forget what you're watching, for the love of Pete. This is just another way for broadcast TV to commit suicide in slow motion.
Pointless device in Canada (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, this device would sell up here about as well as bottled yellow snow.
They aren't pointless at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
These devices are used in order to compress a program into the right amount of time so you CAN put the required amount of commericals in.
It's not at *all* a way to 'scam' the consumer into watching more commercials.. just a way to 'shorten' a show so it fits your schedule.
Canadian stations use this too, you can bet on it.
Re:They aren't pointless at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Survey says... get real. It is absolutely a device to squeeze more commercials into a given time period. That's why it was made, how it is marketed, why it will be bought. Did you miss the part about the millions of dollars of extra ad revenue?
I remember from a year or so back (when I used to write closed captioning software) a couple of networks doing someting like this already. (I seem to recall PAX being one of them but wouldn't swear to that.)
The reason the whole thing sticks in my mind is that dropping frames like this plays hell with caption data and any other VBI data such as Web TV, VCHIP, etc.
Devil's Advocate here... (Score:3, Funny)
You guys are always naysaying! Why don't you come up with an invention like inward sing--- oh wait, wrong rant....
Where to get addl time (Score:5, Insightful)
I already do this . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Each year, I prepare for the Super Bowl. Not that I like the Super Bowl, but apart from knowing the score at each quarter, the only knowledge you need to prove that you watched the game is what commercials were shown.
After programming my VCR to record the game, I watch the amusing commercials and fast forward through the game itself. This new-fangled "Time Machine" just gives you the illusion of actually watching the show between ads.
This could actually be good (Score:3, Interesting)
You folks are looking at it wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, I've often wanted the ability to do just this - compress a TV show I want to see so as to be better able to fit it into my time.
Now, if we could just compress the time wasted by laugh tracks....
Where's my time-compressing pitch-shifting tivo? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be more keen to watch some things if they'd take a lot less time - I think I might not even skip ads if I was watching at 200% normal speed.
Am I wrong, and Tivo or RePlay offers this feature already?
.
time compression (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't take credit for the idea but when I read this in a science fiction novel years ago, it really made me wonder what the average attention span will be in twenty or thirty years.
this would concern me if (Score:3, Insightful)
I no more buy products because some clown makes me laugh, or some half naked girlie makes me excited. So what is the difference when instead of 'directly' selling me something, they are pushing some agenda that must use a fantasy environment (the fantasy environment created by ANY book, film, theater, etc) to make it sound plausable?
As long as Discovery, et al don't fall prey to this I imagine I will not even notice it.
It's better than the alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
I noticed this scene-dropping one day on a re-run of "the simpsons"
But still, yet another ad can be squeezed in. I can't wait.
A few more years, and broadcast TV everywhere will be all shot to hell. The only channels left worth watching in Australia are the ABC (which doesn't have ads, being gov't funded),and SBS (who at least lumps their ads together at the end of each show). The other 3 networks are crap, with over-sensationalised news (how many more "shocking","horrific" news stories can there be?) and it seems more ads than content.
Who's up for making the next slashdot on the internet2 with video comments instead? Count me in
Backlash? (Score:3, Insightful)
Realistically 90% of people are going to put up with any crap you force on them, but still, this might make a lot of the type of people who read /. give up on live TV.
I also think it is silly to argue that no one will notice... I agree that it will be subtle, but think about it, .5/23= about 2.2% of the show, and that's assuming it was still a 23 min long show. Don't tell me you can hear compression artifacts in a 160kbps MP3, but you can't tell that the show is 2% faster. Doesn't break my heart with many of the shows they are playing, but 2% could very well have an effect on the timing of a dramatic scene in a good show or movie, and I think the networks are far more likely to use this in addition to and not instead of cutting scenes.
Well, it's a good thing many good TV series are coming out on DVD. And just keep watching Cartoon Network, since they have to follow the 6-min commercial limit ;)
I think if I was a director (Score:3)
Then some idiot comes along and starts chopping bits out all over the place. If the program would have worked 30 seconds faster, it would have been *made* 30 seconds faster, and had an extra few scenes. Surely?
- MugginsM
Restoring Homer (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, they'll probably do it anyway just to add *more* commercials, and save the deleted scenes for the DVDs, damn their moneygrubbing souls. Mr. Burns would be proud.
Re:Restoring Homer (Score:4, Interesting)
Good luck, but you will most likely never see those scenes in syndication.
Not only do they cut out several (of the arguably funniest) scenes per episode, but they also fade out to commercials ridiculously early; I mean they don't even allow the scene to properly end. They will literally fade the audio out in mid-sentence of the last line of the scene, so that they can start the commercials earlier.
If that wasn't enough, they then split-screen the ending credits so that they can show ads on half of the screen! This is especially frustrating since the Simpsons often puts gags in the credits, such as voiceovers, songs, etc., which get completely talked over.
Then, as the coup de grâce, in each of the 3 scenes, they randomly flash a barely translucent "THE SIMPSONS ON FOX" banner over the top 1/4" of the screen, and they randomly put in promos for other shows over the bottom 1/4" of the screen!
Reminds of good old days in Hong Kong (Score:4, Interesting)
You are the product...And you taste like chicken. (Score:5, Informative)
The harvester and packager of the product is the huge machine which keeps the TV screen saturated with images targeted to specific groups.
The consumer of this product is the advertiser.
As long as you keep that in mind, all of this makes perfect sense.
The TV isn't on for YOU. It's on for them.