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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, 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?"