For a very long time, life was limited by the rate at which we spoke. Although we have had writing systems for millennia, early texts were designed to be read aloud, meaning that literature unfolded at the pace of human speech. For years now, podcast and audiobook players have provided speedup options, and research shows that most people prefer listening to accelerated speech. Now Jeff Guo writes at The Washington Post that a new kind of storytelling is emerging as software has made it much easier to watch videos at 1.5x to 2x.
You can play DVDs and iTunes purchases at whatever tempo you like and a Google engineer has written a popular Chrome extension that accelerates most other Web videos, including on Netflix, Vimeo and Amazon Prime. Over 100,000 people have downloaded that plug-in, and the reviews are ecstatic. “Oh my God! I regret all the wasted time I've lived before finding this gem!!” one user wrote. According to Guo speeding up video is more than an efficiency hack. "I quickly discovered that acceleration makes viewing more pleasurable. "Modern Family" played at twice the speed is far funnier — the jokes come faster and they seem to hit harder. I get less frustrated at shows that want to waste my time with filler plots or gratuitous violence. The faster pace makes it easier to appreciate the flow of the plot and the structure of the scenes."
"So here we are," concludes Guo, "spending three hours a day on average, scrambling to keep up with the Kardashians, the Starks, the Underwoods, and the dozens of others on the roster of must-watch TV, which has exploded in the age of fragmented audiences. "Nowadays, to stay on the same wavelength with your different groups of friends — the ones hating on “Meat Chad” and the ones cooing over Khaleesi — you have to watch in bulk."
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:15PM
I used the movie that the was subject of this story [soylentnews.org].
It was OK, but after about forty minutes I noticed I was missing some of the subtler things so I switched back to regular speed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:59PM
My friend does this and it annoys the hell out of me.
It's analogous to a good dinner, or any similar pleasant experience. The extra time available allows one to savor and contemplate each bite of the experience, increasing the likelihood that they will take the most from it after the experience is over.
Even pitch-corrected speedups introduce artifacts. Those of you who are into digital audio, try this - speed up or slow down a voice recording drastically. Apply pitch correction. The result will be a voice that sounds like it's been sucking on donkey dick all day.
In other words, get a fucking attention span, for fuck's sake. This is what happens when kids are raised with X-boxes all goddamn day long - everything else sounds like Ben Stein.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:26PM
The extra time available allows one to savor and contemplate each bite of the experience, increasing the likelihood that they will take the most from it after the experience is over.
Did someone hijack your account?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:01PM
I tend to use higher speed for documentaries, but not for movies. Documentaries I watch for the information; usually the information is delivered too slowly by the documentation, so a speed-up is perfect. If the speedup doesn't help, the documentation is not worth watching.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:12PM
I also do this for information. Usually on presentations and tutorials. There aren't any subtle parts to miss, lol.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:14PM
A lot of shows have 'filler' in their episodes to pad out to the timeslot. It is actually one thing I like about Steven Universe and a lot of the other 15 minute TV shows. They have such a small time budget that they have to fill it with so much activity you don't get bored and want to speed it up. A lot of other shows and many forms of anime don't. There is often no background exposition to miss because of a few less frames, the dialogue is all up front and often related to the present only, etc. I have in fact been running subtitled works at up to 2x speed because there is not a lot to miss and it allows me to fix in 2x as many shows into the same amount of free time.
The real trick nowadays isn't in fast forwarding shows, it is in optimizing the show pacing to make full use of the available time, or shortening the show length for the same purpose. Timeslots only mattered for broadcast purposes. The advent of on-demand means episodes can be of irregular lengths and as long as they are providing an ongoing and satisfying story, nobody will care.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:49PM
In the university I would listen to lectures up to 4x. For new material, I would speed along at roughly the rate you could read at (1.3 or 1.5x). But for a lecture that I already watched, speeding through refreshers was a great review mechanism. When you hit material that you are shaky on, skip back a minute and play slower.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 27 2016, @01:16AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @08:23PM
> In other words, get a fucking attention span, for fuck's sake.
Blah. Most tv is produced for people who aren't 100% dedicated to watching - they might be talking with others in the room, cooking, cleaning, maybe pop out to take a piss, going through the mail, doing their bills, or maybe browsing the web on their phone. If you aren't doing any of that and can give 100% focus then all that extra spacing to accommodate everyone else is just wasted time.
> The result will be a voice that sounds like it's been sucking on donkey dick all day.
That sure is specific. Sounds like you are intimately familiar with that.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:26PM
Wake me up when someone writes a brain plugin that lets me tile all the shows I want to watch side by side and enables me to focus on each one at the same time.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:36PM
You'll develop split personalities, with the brain regions that watch different shows evolving in different directions - could get messy.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by jcross on Monday June 27 2016, @04:18AM
In all seriousness, that's a pretty badass idea for a sci-fi story right there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:27PM
on the roster of must-watch TV
A third of the population watched some episodes of MASH.
A third of one percent of the population watches your "must-watch" Kardashian show. 99.7% of the population doesn't watch that. Its more of a must-not-watch list.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:20PM
It means that the morons who watch those stupid shows are idiotic enough to use that brainless plug-in. Maybe some folks should learn to read?
Also, about "Although we have had writing systems for millennia, early texts were designed to be read aloud", I did a little Googling and could find nothing concrete to back this up, just guesses by various scholars. No ancient texts that specifically say they were meant to be read aloud, although some texts are indeed designed purposely to be read aloud (e.g. poetry). I find it hard to believe that bills of lading and such were written to be read aloud.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:19PM
Maybe this is working backwards from how oral traditions and epics were preserved by the first writing systems? I was under the impression that the first writing systems were used for accounting purposes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:23PM
As a little kid, I watched television at every opportunity. I loved the shapes and colors, the sounds. About the time I grew to 3 feet tall, I actually began to follow plots. At 4 feet tall, I began to APPRECIATE plots. At five feet tall, I began to discriminate amongst the plots. By the time I reached 6 feet tall, television had lost all of it's plots.
You mention MASH. It had a theme, and multiple plots, that made sense. I've downloaded and watched the entire series, and watched them all. I was surprised to find that I had missed a few, since it was in rerun for so very long. Browsing through all the entertainment available on Netflix and elsewhere, I simply can't find anything that I want to watch. All I see is mindless drivel. Fek, I can get better than that just sitting around and thinking.
It's encouraging that you say 99.7% of the population doesn't watch that stuff. I hope it's true. If so, maybe there is hope for America yet. Mindless drivel.
The folder where I keep my ebooks is larger than the folder where I put all the movies that I care to watch. Considering the relative size of movies and books, that really says a lot about the lack of quality of movies.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:48PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:54PM
It's encouraging that you say 99.7% of the population doesn't watch that stuff. I hope it's true.
Yeah I pulled the numbers in that case. Its possible to play all kinds of games based on average season or highest rating episode ever or ... but they all boil down to a fraction of one percent. A million or so USA viewers in a 320+ million country.
The good news is that no one watches "must see TV". The bad news is there's like 20 cookie cutter reality channels, so the problem is maybe 10 times bigger than that implies.
If someone told me the death of TV would be melting up in volume until you get 500 channels nobody watches any of, I'd never have believed it, I'd have expected sudden economic collapse of the industry due to centralization leading to out of control financialization costs, or a slow steady melt downward in volume.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday June 27 2016, @06:16AM
I easily spend 10X more time on this forum as I do watching TV.
TV has this way of subconsciously irritating the hell out of me with the timing of ad breaks. And its the same old tired ad over and over again. Its usually someone trying to sell me life insurance - but they keep using so many weasel-words I get the strong impression that they won't hold up their end. Why would I want to leave my loved ones arguing with an insurance company over my answers to the "three easy questions" that they will use to dispute whether or not a payout is coming?
And the Kardashians? I thought that was a race of people conjured up by Star Trek, until a big promotion at McDonalds pasted her picture all over the place. I still do not know what she does. I guess she's famous because some guys with a printing press and a microphone say so. She is a pretty thing, and obviously has the connections to the star-making machine. I guess that's about all it takes to be famous these days. You know it has to be true, because it was said through a microphone.
My love affair with the TV went out when YouTube came online. TV viewing also took a big hit when my last VCR bit the dust due to a broken belt and worn head. At those days, I was running OTA TV, and I could not have my computer on while watching TV because the computer made too much EMI, so I could not use my computer as a replacement VCR by using a Hauppauge board. ( Yes, I did try to do just that. ).
Its damn near impossible to follow a TV show these days, due to all the ads. I might watch some really old re-runs of old shows I grew up with - I already know how they are gonna turn out so if I miss pretty good gaps, nothing lost. But I would not consider trying to watch any new stuff on TV unless I could VCR it first.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday June 27 2016, @08:35PM
And the Kardashians? . . . I still do not know what she does. I guess she's famous because some guys with a printing press and a microphone say so.
I'm ashamed to know this, but it's only a wikipedia search away, [wikipedia.org] and you did ask...
The Kardashian girls' father was one of the lawyers representing O.J. Simpson for his murder trial, [wikipedia.org] so their family had the money to let them pal around with other L.A. rich kids like Paris Hilton. After creating, leaking, and suing the publisher of a sex tape, Kim was independently wealthy to the tune of $5 Million and had the media savvy to grab the spotlight and keep it on her.
Kim Kardashian is famous for being rich, stupid, and exhibitionist. It's a positive feedback loop tuned for turning stupidity (hers and the public's) into cash and "celebrity".
And now I'll go hang my head in shame for a while; I feel dirty knowing anything about this, despite working hard not to get any on myself. I'll console myself that none of my money went to her that I know of...
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:59AM
Yeh, I know Google will look *anything* up for me.
My situation was that I did not give a damn about what appeared to be a rich spoiled brat on a McDonald's placemat. Not enough of a damn to even google her.
Didn't see anything about Paris Hilton that interested me either. Just figured she probably had something to do with Hilton Hotels, and everytime I stayed in one, a couple bux went to her.
Personally, I am much more interested in the thermodynamic properties of propane than both of these "celebrities" put together.
Yet, the world values these celebrities much more than the desalinator stuff I seem to value.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Tuesday June 28 2016, @01:21PM
I know exactly what you're talking about.
By the way, are you suggesting that there's a method for using the thermodynamics of Propane to purify water? I would love to read up on that if you've got a link, it sounds fascinating! That's the sort of innovation the world really needs right now.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 29 2016, @03:53AM
I do not have any link to anyone else doing it this way...
For my uses, the propane is a cheap heat pumping mechanism.
Propane is miscible with lubricant, and most importantly, not corrosive.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:35PM
I think that's sort of the point. If you can genuinely speed the tape up by 2-3x that suggests that there probably wasn't much "story" there to begin with. A lot of genres like comedy and horror depend upon the timing in order to work correctly. And other genres insert pauses where nothing is going on in order to maximize the impact of the narrative.
For programming with little or no value, like Keeping up with the Kardashians, I have no doubt that you could increase the speed to 10 or 20x and still see improvements.
But, for anything that you really enjoy for it's own merits rather than rubber-neck, you're not going to want to speed it up. Programming that's meant to be slurped like that is usually already filmed fast enough. It's why the newscasters in pretty much any country talk so fast.
But, if you really want to go fast, just get a newspaper or a website with text and get the information from there. It's trivial to read at 650 WPM without giving up any of the comprehension. You can go even faster if you don't mind re-reading because you didn't grasp all of it.
(Score: 2) by Max Hyre on Sunday June 26 2016, @09:32PM
(Of course, entertainment [drama, comedy, whatnot] is a different story; I want to savor that.)
(Score: 2) by https on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:47PM
I've not watched these things, and I'm not dead or ostracized. Some of my friends watch some of them, others watch, well, others. If TV is what you have in common with your friends...
"So it's sort of social. Demented and sad, but social."
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VanderDecken on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:47PM
Unplug. Grab some friends, find a patio, and order drinks
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:53PM
Modern Family… Kardashians… Starks… Underwoods… Meat Chad… must-watch TV. I think I've found the problem!
Tempted to give Khaleesi a free pass since A Song of Ice and Fire is in the fiction queue. On the other hand, as far as I could tell by watching the first episode, Game of Thrones is a soft-core porn serial based on the book series.
The Fight Club narrator hit the nail on the head: “How embarrassing… a house full of condiments and no food.”
The faster pace makes it easier to appreciate the flow of the plot and the structure of the scenes.
That's because the source material is CRAP!
On the other hand, this might be handy for those damned tutorial videos on YouTube where some jackass feels the need to waste 15 minutes running his mouth before getting to the one thing that's not documented anywhere!
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:25PM
On the other hand, this might be handy for those damned tutorial videos on YouTube where some jackass feels the need to waste 15 minutes running his mouth before getting to the one thing that's not documented anywhere!
I hate those, too, especially where there's absolutely no need for a video, just some guy saying in fifteen minutes what it would take me three or fewer to read if it were written. Most of us (on S/N anyway) can read a lot faster than we can talk or listen. People who watch Kardassians or whoever they are probably can't read very fast at all.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @08:27PM
That's why I always drag-and-drop youtube talking-head videos into either VLC or smplayer. Both can take a raw youtube URL and play the video. Both have pitch-corrected speed controls. On my system VLC can't seek very well, but smplayer doesn't skip a beat.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 27 2016, @02:12PM
And then at the end there's always the pathetic plea to upvote/like/whatever the video.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:55PM
This is really changing film making. A lot of directors are shooting for half speed to counter views habits.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:09PM
I was watching an Interview with Phil Anselmo, former singer of Pantera. The guy is a burnt out disaster and listening to his slow speech was difficult. Someone in the comments posted to set the speed to 1.25x to make him sound human again. Amazingly enough, he sounded normal and I was able to watch the interview.
I don't see how watching a film at as higher speed would be helpful. Unless it was one of those dumb drawn out horror films they keep releasing like the conjuring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @09:37PM
Consequently you can make anyone sound drunk if you slow them down by 25-50%. There are a bunch of videos on youtube, for example Trump slowed down 50% [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 27 2016, @02:15PM
There was a college professor where I went who basically talked at 1.25x speed all the time. I didn't have him for any classes but he subbed for a couple weeks once when the regular professor was on vacation and it was...interesting. "I can't listen that fast!" :)
That, and I've gotten into the habit of playing Zero Punctuation at .85x speed so I can actually catch all the jokes.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:40PM
rather than fastforward or slowdown playing I was thinking about if future films could be made so the lenght of lead in and lead out of scenes could be decided by the user.
so while the movie have a default cut, it also have some seconds extra filmed at the start and end of each cut (that by default is not shown), and also how much more could be removed, for the quicker viewer.
The looker could then select various slower or faster speed, not by having people walk/move faster or speak faster, (but I suppose it can be combined with that for some scenes?), but rather adding or removing video
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:43PM
...you can not own a TV at all, or at least only use it as a monitor for something like a compute stick. It's been an intellectual cesspool for as long as i can remember, and I remember the original Game Boy coming out. Haven't owned one for about half a lifetime and can't say I miss it. Especially if the little snippets I pick up in public places are any indication. Apparently the "History" channel has become "aliens and Hitler" and the "Learning Channel" is all about some underage kids getting pregnant.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:39PM
Cool story, gramps. Off to Lubys soon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @02:18PM
Where?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 27 2016, @06:25PM
I'm only 30, AC. Now get off my lawn or grandma's gonna go upside your rear end with her cane!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @08:59PM
http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel-429 [theonion.com]
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:52PM
I often watch my DVR'd soccer games at 2x speed, reverting to standard play to see the almost scores and the goals. I can't force myself to watch an NBA or MLB game at normal speed any more. I watch Hockey at normal or even slowed speed to see the puck.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Monday June 27 2016, @11:14AM
oh, i'll go you one better:
i watch a compendium of ALL the 'almost-scores' and actual goals (!) in soccer for the whole season for ALL the teams, and it only takes about a minute...
...at regular speed ! ! !
in short, soccer sux...
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday June 27 2016, @05:02PM
LOL, now in my opinion Baseball is about the most boring sport there is. NBA is even worse. Nascar isn't even a sport, anymore than the WWE. But they are all riveting when compared to 'reality' TV. Keeping slimy with the Kardouchians, The real hoodrats and street-ho's of wherever, or whatever self absorbed drama queens family is airing their over directed inconsequential personal lives for the masses this week. If you really feel that way about soccer why do you even bother to watch, you are just wasting your time, find a good book and savor it. I watch the games the way I do because I have a limited window to see them at all, I'd rather watch them a normal speed but I've other things I have to do. I don't watch anything just to keep up with my friends, but rather to relax and enjoy myself.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by gznork26 on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:04PM
And then there's the extreme case, which was used in Max Headroom: Blipverts, ads that were time-compressed so much that you didn't realize that you'd seen one, but which your subconscious knew all about. One of many techniques of unconscious control that have been explored in fiction over the years. Another was in a movie called Agency, in which an ad agency layered horrific images over the opposing candidate's face so lightly that the subliminal message was undetectable, but still had the desired emotional impact. You can also use carefully chosen words and phrases to manipulate people's reactions, and other techniques as well.
Is this sort of thing another 'slippery slope'? What could you accomplish by layering something into the video stream that is only activated when viewed at increased speed? Does the new standard for incorporating multiple version of a move (for different ratings or venues, for example) into an envelope format support tricks that take advantage of sped-up viewing?
Subverted minds want to know...
(Score: 2) by Max Hyre on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:03PM
So I don't worry about it, nor do I worry about our fine new masters.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @12:49AM
Max Headroom should come back.
(Score: 1) by UncleSlacky on Monday June 27 2016, @08:05AM
Of course, nowadays they could make it entirely digitally, without having to cover a real person in a rubber mask and upper body suit. I'm sure Matt Frewer is still available for voiceover work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2016, @02:22PM
fnord
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:05PM
For example, I tried watching one of the Harry Potter movies with VLC (could have been Deathly Hallows). It got really boring so I sped it up 1.5x, then 2x then I gave up about half way... Maybe some thing's wrong with me - the critics etc seem to say it's supposed to be a decent movie (FWIW a fair number of other Harry Potter movie scenes seem to make even less sense then some of my more coherent dreams - e.g. Dumbledore leaving Harry Potter with weird stuff in his room and walking off).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:42PM
VLC works great with youtube urls dropped directly in the playlist and then played at x1.5-2.0
I do that all the time much better than playing them in the web browser.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 27 2016, @02:24PM
The book too was incredibly boring for the entire first half where Ron, Hermione, and Harry were hanging around in a tent bickering. And they made two movies out of it? What the hell could they have put in the first one?!
Think the last one I saw was Order of the Phoenix.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:07PM
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the viewer does not need to speed up the movie to be able to watch it. Its been a while since I watched an American movie. And the last time I did, I had to speed it up so it would end soon.
It is not the viewer who wants the story to be told at a quicker pace. It is the content. Maybe if American movies and television were not ALL controlled by the jews, you would see something intelligent. You are being dumbed down (over generations) and you don't know it yet. You watch movies free of content (only propaganda) and it is no surprise that you can speed it up without losing value.
(Score: 2) by blackhawk on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:32PM
I just watched True Detective season 2, hot on the heels of watching True Detective season 1. I wish I had watched the second season at 2x speed, or better yet, simply not watched it at all. Season 2 had about 3-4 hours worth of plot, if that, stretched over 8+ hours of time. It was like watching Casino in slow motion, all the while expecting something far better than it ever delivered.
I guess, watching a documentary might be ok when sped up, it's only information you're looking to absorb, but I would hate to watch well crafted cinema treated this way. If it's so shit it's not worth the time it takes to watch...just don't watch it. Sometimes, rarely, it's hard to tell in advance. True Detective Season 2 was one of those rare cases for me, based on Season 1 being so great.
But...FFS, Modern Family and the Kardasians...why the fuck would anyone watch that crap not matter how many times faster it played?
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:13PM
"So here we are," concludes Guo, "spending three hours a day on average, scrambling to keep up with the Kardashians, the Starks, the Underwoods, and the dozens of others on the roster of must-watch TV
Um...who? I have vaguely heard of the Kardashians (something about a woman with a big butt?), but I have no idea who the others are. Assuming that these are sitcoms or the equivalent, I can imagine compressing them by a factor of two does improve it. I imaging compressing it by a factor of a thousand would improve it even more. Imagine: Three hours of TV in 10 seconds, and you won't have missed anything of importance.
I've got to get back to killing alien spaceships. Someone has to save the earth...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Monday June 27 2016, @01:13AM
Cardassians were on DS9
Starks are in Iron Man
Underwood is a bit trickier, the name rang a bell - grain house of cards which was one of the first online only (Netflix) tv series'
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday June 26 2016, @08:55PM
You have "the future" and "television" in the same sentence, somehow implying that television has a future at all. In other news, the latest trends in carbon paper show that more and more typewriter owners use it to make duplicates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:05PM
I often use the speed shortcut keys on Youtube to speed up certain parts of a video I haven't seen before while making sure I didn't miss anything. Too bad youtube doesn't have a restore to normal speed button.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:21PM
That was the machine we used at the TV station to speed up the show to insert more commercials, usually 10 to 15 percent.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @10:53PM
A curious thought just occurred to me: If you find the show too slow and really need to speed it up, shouldn't you not be watching it in the first place?
When a show just puts too much filler, that's usually a signal for me to drop it.