Cable Speeds Up TV Shows To Show More Ads

TBH, I'd be fine if they cut out the "coming up next" and the recap portions of some shows and replaced it with commercials. That way I'd know I wasn't missing anything.
 
Cable is $50 a month. Netflix is $10 a month. Cable never has the shows on that I'm actually in the mood to watch when I turn on the TV. Netflix lets me watch whatever I want, as many times as I want, and actually has the stuff on it that I want to watch. Cable TV has comercials, cuts content from shows and movies to fit them in, and even speeds up the pace of the show so they can pack even more in. Netflix has no commercials or 3rd party advertisement at all.

Am I missing something? Why are people still sending these companies that much money for such a glaringly obvious lesser product?
 
TheCapulet said:
Cable is $50 a month. Netflix is $10 a month. Cable never has the shows on that I'm actually in the mood to watch when I turn on the TV. Netflix lets me watch whatever I want, as many times as I want, and actually has the stuff on it that I want to watch. Cable TV has comercials, cuts content from shows and movies to fit them in, and even speeds up the pace of the show so they can pack even more in. Netflix has no commercials or 3rd party advertisement at all.

Am I missing something? Why are people still sending these companies that much money for such a glaringly obvious lesser product?
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Because Netflix doesn't have ALL the content just yet, especially live content like sports and news. Granted, you can get some of that content online through other means, but it isn't a one stop shop like cable TV is and idiot average joes are still willing to pay for that convenience.

The cost savings are enticing for some people to wisen up, so there is a slow progression towards online services.
 
I'd rather just pay for the channel I would actually watch. I've been paying for QVC, Home shopping, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. for years.

I watch like 7 or 8 channels (and rarely...network channels). I'd rather just pay for the channels I want as opposed to pay for a shitload of channels just to get the few I actually want.
 
This is nothing new.. from 2011..

Joe Donato cites a recent case of time compression, a periodic practice on TV and radio for years.

A show is sped up by perhaps 4%-5%, so 25 minutes of running time becomes 24. That gives a network one extra valuable minute of ad time, and most networks say the technology is good enough so viewers don’t notice the difference.

Donato disagrees.

“TV Land celebrated the 50th anniversary of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ with five uncut episodes,” he says. “And the shows were sped up. Van Dyke’s voice was so high-pitched he sounded like Alvin from the Chipmunks.”
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A forum post from 2011..

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.
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From 2004..

TBS is showing "Analyze This", and before it started there was a note that it was edited for content, formatted for tv, and time compressed. I know what the first two are, but what do they mean by time compressed? .. they slightly speeded up the rate of presentation also, for time's sake. Not enough to make everyone sound like they're on helium, but enough to present the same information in a shorter time.
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And another forum from.. wait for it.. 1999!!

Often the show is "time compressed" so the station can fit in more commercials than when the show was originally created.
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I watched the SNL 40th Anniversary Special recently. They kept talking about it being a "3 and a half hour special"...

Actual runtime: 2 hours, 33 minutes.

The rest was commercials.

Fuck that shit.
 
Yeah nothing new, I remember quite a few years back reading an article on the software used to do it, it removes frames every now (both video and audio) and most people don't notice it at all.
 
MavericK96 said:
I watched the SNL 40th Anniversary Special recently. They kept talking about it being a "3 and a half hour special"...

Actual runtime: 2 hours, 33 minutes.

The rest was commercials.

Fuck that shit.
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It's 8 minutes of commercials for every 30minutes of air time. That is the standard. So that is about right as far as commercial time.

The cable companies will claim they have to do this because the content is so expensive. The content creators will claim they have to charge more because of the production costs. The production companies will claim it's because of the talent / unions. The unions will blame the gaffers for being so expensive. God damn gaffers.

Was this comparison done between OTA and Cable?
 
whenever I playback tv shows, I play them at 1.4x speed. it's nice to be able to finish them faster
 
someone brings up a good point in the youtube comments section (holy shit!)

Why not speed up commercials by 7.5% if "its really the same thing"? they can get even more money.
 
DF-1 said:
someone brings up a good point in the youtube comments section (holy shit!)

Why not speed up commercials by 7.5% if "its really the same thing"? they can get even more money.
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LOL.

In a way they kind of do already. You ever see a commercial for medicine?

Ever since they were required by law to read side effects, those commercials look more like this:

Ever had upset stomach, rash, eye twitch, or just a random urge to put bludgeon your neighbor to death with your fully erect penis?

Then FUCKITOL IS FOR YOU!!!!!!

[pictures of random man and woman doing daily activities and being intimate play for next 30 seconds]

At the end is a warning that is written in fine print and spoken by a man with a deep voice you can barely hear. He speaks faster than a tweaker who just got done doing a mixture of methamphetamine, bath salts, and an 8 ball of cocaine while washing it down with a triple espressso:

Warning: may cause bloody stool, psycotic thoughts, schizophrenia, dick rot, blue waffle, penile warts, abiltiy to think you can predict the future, desire to shove weirdly shaped objects in every orifice, coughing up blood, skin conditions that make you look like a reptile, brittle bones, useless superpowers, super acidic urine that melts porcelain, elephantiasis, and any random other ailment that this product is not listed as a cure for. Do not take if you are pregnant or wish to become pregnant as your offspring will likely tear through your uterus and eat the face off your doctor while farting show tunes out of its anus.
 
DF-1 said:
someone brings up a good point in the youtube comments section (holy shit!)

Why not speed up commercials by 7.5% if "its really the same thing"? they can get even more money.
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Problem is that commercials are priced by the second. So if you cut off 1 second they would have to charge less. So while they might get another commercial in there, 60 seconds of commercial time is still only 60 seconds worth of money. You are just getting it from say 6 people instead of 5.
 
Scythe said:
I'd rather just pay for the channel I would actually watch. I've been paying for QVC, Home shopping, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. for years.

I watch like 7 or 8 channels (and rarely...network channels). I'd rather just pay for the channels I want as opposed to pay for a shitload of channels just to get the few I actually want.
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When you'll be able to pick and choose your channels, each channel is gonna cost $5. So in the end you'll be paying the same but getting less... less is more.
 
BBC America cuts my Dr. Who versus the British version and also speeds up certain scenes to cram in more commercials. It is annoying as...
 
They've been doing this for a while, years in fact. I'm surprised that everyone doesn't know this, yet another reason to ditch broadcast TV. They're really trying to scare us all away.
 
Spidey329 said:
It's 8 minutes of commercials for every 30minutes of air time. That is the standard. So that is about right as far as commercial time.

The cable companies will claim they have to do this because the content is so expensive. The content creators will claim they have to charge more because of the production costs. The production companies will claim it's because of the talent / unions. The unions will blame the gaffers for being so expensive. God damn gaffers.

Was this comparison done between OTA and Cable?
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I work in a tv studio. One of the things I have to do is occasionally go through the tape archives and find segments needed for newer episodes. In the archives are the tapes in which were the final edits of episodes that were sent out to the stations for broadcast.

This particular show we do has been on the air for 30 years. Going back far enough I can see that the episodes used to be much longer with the runtimes printed on the tape inserts.

It used to be 5 minutes per half hour. (25 minute episode) Then it slowly creeped up to 6. (24 minute episode) Then 7 (23 minute episode) as recently as the end of last decade. Now it's 8 minutes per. 22 minute episode blocks for half hour.

This is on TOP of the fact that sponsor segments are integrated within episodes themselves on a lot of shows. "Closed captioning was sponsored in part by..." And on top of that... Product placement.

Now the broadcast stations are asking us to make MORE time for their ads.

Yes. We're all disgruntled. We end up having to compromise good episodes for the sake of runtime.
 
forcefed said:
When you'll be able to pick and choose your channels, each channel is gonna cost $5. So in the end you'll be paying the same but getting less... less is more.
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Sadly this is probably how it will happen but I would love to drop every damn sports channel in existence and I don't need SD duplicates of my HD programs.. I watch QVC more than those as at least there is some entertainment value there :p
 
forcefed said:
When you'll be able to pick and choose your channels, each channel is gonna cost $5. So in the end you'll be paying the same but getting less... less is more.
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Even $5 per channel would be cheaper than what I'm currently spending for the few channels I watch.

Truth is most channels don't currently cost that much, and a few channels cost a lot more than that.
Main cost is the sports channels that I would be happy to drop. Channels like ESPN know most people want the channel, so they force the cable companies to provide it (and pay for it) for every customer.


If I could just add a couple channels the wife watches onto the cable companies low cost package, it would cut my cost almost in half. Instead I have to pay for a bunch of extra channels I don't care for just so she can watch a couple shows.

Can't wait until more of these channels go direct off a web site so I can bypass cable.
 
It's such a disgusting practice... but if they weren't running side by side, I wouldn't have been able to pick it up. So I don't know. It's a bad practice for consumers, but it's not really noticeable.
 
I sometimes feel like I'm on speed... turns out my music player was accidentally set to 1.5x
 
This and the reduction in bandwidth (quality) so they can squeeze more channels in.
Great isnt it.
 
Although they speed up the pictures they will timeslice the sound so it still sounds mostly natural. Otherwise you would be hearing chipmonks
 
Not really anything new. About 10 years ago, I was watching a recorded episode of everybody loves raymond, and noticed there seemed to be a whole lot of commercials. Then, it also seemed like they were talking rather quickly (which isn't really much, considering it's a new york dialect). I went back and timed it; 13 minutes of show, 17 minutes of commercials. There've been others, but I always watch things that I've recorded, and zip through the commercials anyway (other than the sports things that I watch live).
 
jiminator said:
Although they speed up the pictures they will timeslice the sound so it still sounds mostly natural. Otherwise you would be hearing chipmonks
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We get this in the UK with Big Bang Theory.
When the music is playing, I can hear it have multiple mistimings per second.
I sometimes hear it during the program as well.
 
This must explain why TV shows/movies you set up with DVR are cutting the last few minutes off. It never did that before.
 
and they WONDER why people are cutting the cord at an ever increasing pace.

Pay for X -- and they still find a way to fuck you.

I haven't paid a cable or satellite bill (for tv) in something like 6 years. I never see myself having that crap again.
 
give me free cable and I will watch your commercials.
It's really that simple, free FM, then I listen to your commercials and the same music over and over and over and over (sadly, but it is what it is)
'Cable' should be free, I don't even get how it's still a 'service' you have to pay for.
"They" can do this, but hey I guess its better to be paid several times in different ways, not sure if it makes sense if your base starts to shrink or keeps shrinking (is it shrinking?)
On a side note, some British shows could use some speeding up hehe.. Just joking.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Warning: may cause bloody stool, psycotic thoughts, schizophrenia, dick rot, blue waffle, penile warts, abiltiy to think you can predict the future, desire to shove weirdly shaped objects in every orifice, coughing up blood, skin conditions that make you look like a reptile, brittle bones, useless superpowers, super acidic urine that melts porcelain, elephantiasis, and any random other ailment that this product is not listed as a cure for. Do not take if you are pregnant or wish to become pregnant as your offspring will likely tear through your uterus and eat the face off your doctor while farting show tunes out of its anus.
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ROFL thank you
 
They also cut entire scenes out of movies now. Not for the traditional reasons, boobies and bad words, but to make time for commercials. A movie that was originally 90 minutes gets 5 minutes edited out for content then another 10 minutes edited out for run length and still somehow runs 3 hours on the network. If I was a movie director I'd be pissed.
 
I've suspected this watching reruns of Family Guy and other shows for years. I know what that shit is supposed to sound like. When it's sped up, sometimes it's very obvious.
 
At least I can FF with my DVR. God forbid I have to catch up with the On-Demand where I can't fast forward through the commercials. I pay $180 per month for the privilege of cable, you'd think they'd offer one thing without commercials. I imagine at some point the movies that are available on demand will have small logos for products somewhere on the screen.
 
Scythe said:
I'd rather just pay for the channel I would actually watch. I've been paying for QVC, Home shopping, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. for years.

I watch like 7 or 8 channels (and rarely...network channels). I'd rather just pay for the channels I want as opposed to pay for a shitload of channels just to get the few I actually want.
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I don't have TV service at all, but if I did, I think the only channels I'd want are the QVC, HSN, Weather, and the History channel (because aliens, okay? :mad:). The other channels are just trash like reality TV, sports, news, and mindless shows for the brain-dead zombie masses.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Because Netflix doesn't have ALL the content just yet, especially live content like sports and news. Granted, you can get some of that content online through other means, but it isn't a one stop shop like cable TV is and idiot average joes are still willing to pay for that convenience.

The cost savings are enticing for some people to wisen up, so there is a slow progression towards online services.
Click to expand...

ESPN is available on the Roku now.
 
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