Trimming Television to Sell More Ads 536
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."
Just what we need. (Score:2, Insightful)
So which frames are they cutting, and do they plan to cut the audio too? I suppose during moments of intense silence, cutting a 24/th of a second of audio won't be a big problem, but still.
I just hope its not something that chirps..or is otherwise obvious what they're doing.
-Restil
Where to get addl time (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:You folks are looking at it wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe It's needed (Score:1, Insightful)
I started listing to Talk Radio at 21 for 4 hours per day.
60sec*4 = 240sec per show i.e 4 minutes.
4*365 = 1460 Minutes per year
54*1460=78840
(Forgive me I forgot leap years;0
For a grand total of 54.74 Days of being ripped out of entertainment.
Now you say that entertainment is free.. What do you want. Shall we do the math for 4 hours of TV per day and standard commercials at par.
Here is the deal people, we pay for our entertainment with our time. In exchange we agree to take a gander at a few sales pitches.
What this means is that we are taking a pay cut. Plain and simple
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 ;)
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.
Paramount has been hacking ST to bits for years (Score:3, Insightful)
Paramount has been playing all sorts of tricks with the UPN Voyager and Enterprise feeds [vidiot.com] at least since Mid to Late 1999, It's old news to me.
The interesting thing here is that the Enterprise Feeds sent to Canada [vidiot.com], on Telstar 5 TP 16 [lyngsat.com] for broadcast say on A-Channel [a-channel.com] don't have this
What we know is that this is lucurative, and people who can't compare the two will not know what it is that they are missing.
I suppose that these people [22minutes.com] will have to get a new name.
Commercials are the PURPOSE of TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you the viewer have demonstrated an unfortunate reluctance to immerse yourself in 30-120 minute blocks of advertisements.
Until such time as TV producers find a way to convince you to do that, you can expect them to do as much as is technically possible to add commercials until you get frustrated and stop watching TV.
The networks don't care whether you like the content of the programs. They only care whether you will watch the programs enough that a certain percentage of you see and or hear the advertisements.
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.
Complex Process (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing that gets me in the article is that you have to run the spot in front of the show (time delay)! So what happens when the machine can't remove enough frames.... now you are 30 seconds behind. I can just imagine all the complaints when the station chops off the last bit of a show containing the punchline so they can meet back up with the network at the top of the hour (resync for news/live events).
There already is a solution. (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe I'll be flamed for taking this un-american point of view, but these people already stretch movies to gain a 5% of time to put commercials in; soon or later they'll convince you that a movie stretched to 50% fits better the modern life speed and spare time shortage.
Fight them the only way they fear: no sells.
Re:So what's wrong with this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Another Sleazy Great Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking a cue from all those advertisements that have been chopping the bottoms off the screen and overwriting part of the action with a semi-transparent channel logo I hereby predict:
Remember, you read it on Slashdot first!
Re:I LOVE THE BBC (Score:2, Insightful)
And slots that promote nothing but the channel (e.g. all the cute animated logos....) are a waste of time - people don't exactly have much "brand loyalty" as far as channels go. People switch channels 50 times a day, for god's sake. Promoting your "channel" is completely pointless vs., for example, actually scheduling something that people want to watch.
But one area I do think it is justified is promoting novel kinds of programme and new series launches. You can target pretty precisely the kind of audience the programme would appeal to, and can use this device to encourage people to branch out beyond their normal habits. Don't see much harm in that, and the BBC certainly has a role in broadening peoples' horizons.
Re:Sounds like "Cash" on radio (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yep nothing new (Score:1, Insightful)
Throwing Out The TV (Score:3, Insightful)
The movie industry has almost convinced me to stop using their product. Movie prices keep rising, the quality of the theatres keep dropping. I find it unacceptable to go to a theatre and see 5 minutes of "black rain" when there's a bright white scene. I think that movies are also moving into the abyss, much like music, but at a much slower pace. There are still enough people making interesting movies to keep my interest alive. So if I shirk theatres that's no big deal; it's simple to make a home theatre these days. And then there's the whole DVD and HDTV mess
While I gave up on network TV a long time ago, I've found that many cable/satellite channels have quality entertainment in their lineups. Because of the sheer number of available channels, I always figured that cable/satellite TV would stay relatively unscathed by all the BS that has destroyed the music industry, and is gnawing at the movie industry. Then I read articles like this, and ones that talk about the fervent attepts to destroy the ability to record television programs. I can easily see television being the next media outlet that I throw away.
If there are any music/movie/television industry workers reading this thread, I just want to make it clear that in your rabid pursuit to further unbalance the scales of product and profit you are at the very least going to lose this customer. And I can't help but think there are others who feel the same.
I guess I'm done ranting for now.