Minisode Network Condenses TV Shows to Under Six Minutes

CNN is reporting on a (relatively) new website called the Minisode Network that allows users to watch popular television shows that have been strategically condensed down to somewhere between four and six minutes. "Don't think of the Minisode Network as a brand-new Web site. Think of it as a long-overdue public service. That is, who among us hasn't felt the double-edged sword of our media age: So much video from TV, DVDs, the Internet and even cell phones ... but too little time to watch it all? The Minisode Network has a solution. Launched in June as a broadband channel on the MySpace site, it offers, for our streaming pleasure, episodes of vintage Sony Pictures Television series like 'Silver Spoons,' 'Starsky & Hutch,' 'Diff'rent Strokes' and even Ricki Lake's talk show."

Comments

hmm

[Winckle]

Is this a rather sad reflection of today's culture?

Or am I just being outmoded and stubborn?

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a sad reflection on todays culture, consider that most Hollywood movies would benefit from being cut down to 6 minutes.

Re:hmm

[ChrisMounce]

tl;dr

Re:hmm

[g0dsp33d]

2 minutes previews and 4 minutes credits? What is going to be in the previews? The credits?

Re:hmm

[Aladrin]

Yesterday's culture, you mean. All the shows are from 20 years ago.

I don't doubt that today's shows could receive the same treatment with the same results, though. Nothing changes. TV will always be 90% fluff and commercials as long as it's how they make money, and it doesn't appear that other money sources are likely.

I had hoped to see shows like Kyle XY on there, that I like the story but the majority of the ep is fluff. Grey's Anatomy (ow, gimme back my geek card!) too. Oddly, Lost is one of the shows that wouldn't benefit, as there are too many little hidden things that you notice later.

Re:hmm

[g0dsp33d]

Back in my day we used to have to pay attention for 30 minutes...

That's it. I'm investing all my money in ADD medicines.

Re:hmm

[Bullfish]

Yeah, you're outmoded and stubborn. I bet you read books printed on paper too

Re:hmm

[packeteer]

1 minute of previews, 4 minutes of adds, 1 minute for credits...

Re:hmm

[spyrochaete]

This is a means for people to watch 6 minute shows on the web instead of 30 minute shows on the couch. Seems to me this is a great example of how people would like stories told these days.

Re:hmm

[mixxu]

You are. I'd write a lengthier response if I had the time.

Re:hmm

[tlhIngan]

Yesterday's culture, you mean. All the shows are from 20 years ago.blockquote>

If you go there, most of the shows are from 20 years ago. But there are a few contemporaries, like Dilbert (2001-ish)... which is perfect for office use, I think. Just like people post dilbert cartoons on their cubes, they'll be mailing minisodes of the Dilbert series as well...

Re:hmm

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Is this a rather sad reflection of today's culture?"

Maybe. Or maybe it's a reflection of how hard (or easy) it is to squeeze a story into exactly 22 minutes.

Re:hmm

[Seumas]

I don't see a problem with it. Personally, I'm a busy person. A lot of professionals have very busy careers, then they may have personal projects that they hope to turn into a business some day. Then they have hefty hobbies of some sort. Some also have family to deal with. The last thing they want to waste time on is a three hour movie or an hour long television show with twenty-two minutes of commercials.

I have a habit of listening to podcasts or books on audio or even radio talk shows like Rick Emerson at as much as double speed. I listened to John Stewart's American History book in this fashion and ran through it very quickly, without missing the actual content.

Do I wish there were enough time to sit back and watch a three hour hour movie in real time, spend twelve hours reading a huge tome of fiction or listen to music while staring into a black night room? I sure do. But I don't have that kind of time. Sorry.

Is it a sad reflection of today's culture? I can't really comment on that. Perhaps as a country that spends more days and hours working than any other nation on the planet and takes the least vacations, we have less and less available time for other things. Leisurely entertainment falls to the wayside. I just know that every time I sit down to read a lengthy non-technical, non-career related book, I am constantly thinking "I should be writing code on my personal project. I should be finishing some stuff at work. I should be building a new computer for my little sister away at college.".

Re:hmm

[kebes]

One interpretation is that it's sad that people don't have the attention span to watch a 30-minute show, and would rather watch a 5-minute compressed version of it.

Another interpretation is that it's sad that the content in question is so bad, so filled with fluff and useless scenes, that it can be comfortably compressed by a factor of 6 with little loss in intelligent commentary or entertainment value.

Frankly I don't think many people are going to want to watch compressed versions of Schindler's List. But many shows truly are needlessly long and slow-moving (the intention, I suppose, it to increase the ratio of commercials to production dollars). I think a crappy hour-long show could conceivably be compressed into an entertaining 5-minute show by a talented editor. In fact, many movie trailers (which are only a few minutes long) are quite a bit more compelling, funny, and entertaining than the full-length movies they advertise. Some things are really not worth an hour of my time. But 5 minutes? Maybe.

Re:hmm

[Yvan256]

That's a great idea! I'll also invest all my money into SUB... erm.

MOV... no...

SHR... that's not it either...

ah, now I remember! NOP medicines.

Re:hmm

[fritzbrown]

You do have the time to enjoy a good book or movie, you choose not to. Nothing wrong with that, though I'd be willing to bet that if you actually read John Stewart's book you'd realize that you missed quite a bit of content.

I'm a busy person also but if a one hour television show can be cut down to six minutes and retain it's story, it isn't worth watching at any length.

Re:hmm

[hlh_nospam]

Don't thing that was the point. It' been a while since I watched any TV, but it seemed even back then that there was less than 4 minutes of actual content in a 30-minute segment, so compressing it to that point would not be all that remarkable.

Re:hmm

[Seumas]

I didn't miss anything from Stewart's book by speeding through the audio version at an increased tempo. Listening to audio faster than normal is definitely not the same thing as "speed reading", in which you lose a great deal of the actual content (because that's essentially how speed-reading works).

And I can both agree and disagree with an hour long show being cut down to six minutes and retaining its story.

For one thing, an hour long television show is actually only about 40 minutes after commercials and credits. Second, a lot of content in entertainment is fluff. Think of all the great works of fiction that can easily be condensed into a paragraph. Some can even be condensed into a sentence. You only enjoy the nuance and particulars of a story by reading through every page and word of it, but you don't remember all of it either.

Think back on a book you read a year ago. How much of the story do you actually recall? Probably only the main points of it. In the long run, do I need to read six pages of Tolkein describing the kind of shirt someone is wearing? No. It contributes to the current experience a great deal, but in the long run it is not very significant.

I'm not saying that reading is a waste of time or any form of entertainment is a waste of time if consumed at the pace of the author or director... but really... think about how many countless hours, days, weeks and even months of your life might be spent consuming the fluff between the events.

I can dedicate eight hours to a stack of RFCs, but I definitely can't spare eight hours to pour through a chunk of Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Riders. Yes, it's a judgement call on an individual basis. I have to decide that a stack of data related to my field of interest is of greater long-term value than a fantasy novel. This might not have been such a problem forty years ago, when things moved at a slower pace. When you didn't communicate with someone instantly by cell phone or email, but dashed off a letter, stuck a stamp on it and had two weeks to wait for a reply to it. More downtime. More leisure.

I would be surprised if there were many movies that you could *not* condense into six minutes and not still convey the plot, characters and events relatively in-full.

Re:hmm

[Seumas]

To be fair, there are no 30 minute shows that are any good. A thirty minute show is almost certainly a sit-com and... well... I think we can all admit that sit-coms are for mouth-breathing morons. Who really sits around and finds Everybody Loves Raymond or King of Queens or any of that crap funny?

It also depends on the content. Personally, I consume a lot of content and while I may suck down a bunch of sci-fi and horror movies by jumping through the film at 30 seconds at a time (except for the interesting parts), I'm certainly going to sit and watch the entire movie through if it's something worthy of some consideration. Unfortunately, most content does not fall into the "worth my undivided and full attention".

It also depends on the value of the minutia. The minutia in Schindler's List is certainly going to be more interesting than the minutia of Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean or Tokyo Drift.

Re:hmm

[stonedcat]

There are entirely too many people involved in making 4 minutes of ads to be credited in only 1 minute. ^_^

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing remarkable about them picking 2-3 scenes that form the bare minimal plotline; They could do that with any half hour show. What's interesting is that today's culture is in such a rush that they think just these bits are what we want.

Though Dragonball Z could use this treatment. I think a whole weeks worth of episodes could be condensed to 6 minutes without losing any significant plot points.

Re:hmm

[timeOday]

Or am I just being outmoded and stubborn?

It's like arguing whether big lolly pops are better than small ones. The Dukes of Hazard isn't particularly enlightening, whether in 6 or 25 minutes.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

i modded you up based on your previous comment. now i wish i hadn't. your life is sad and pathetic. i *honestly* pity you. Please, buy a fucking book and fucking read it. a book that, in light of what you've just said, is totally useless. just hours and hours of literature. it will do you more good than you can ever imagine.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what? I'm not done yet. Let me get more specific: Go read Cryptonomicon. Specifically the part where Neil Stephenson wastes valuable paper describing the joys of eating Cap'nCrunch cereal. Now tell me that wasn't time well spent! My god, man -- LIVE a little!

Re:hmm

[mgblst]

I am going to invest my money in MUL - the return is much higher.

Re:hmm

[Wdomburg]

Cliff's Notes has been compressing literature down to booklets for about fifty years. Does that mean that Dickens and Tolstoy and so forth wrote 'fluff'?

Re:hmm

[MajinBlayze]

unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep

Yay! a unix joke from someone who's never touched a unix os!

Re:hmm

[Retric]

Yes, over 1/2 of Dickens and Tolstoy is fluff.

EX: Dickens was paid by installment so like modern TV shows he had to add fluff to remind people what's going on and to keep each installment interesting.

PS: IMO Tolstoy was just a wind bag.

Re:hmm

[poot_rootbeer]

NOP medicines.

Could be a good investment. With the number of clinical studies that go on, there's always going to be a market for placebo pills.

Re:hmm

[Applekid]

Or, more directly, the fluff of Dickens and Tolstoy has literary and artistic merit while the fluff of sitcoms truly is expendible.

Re:hmm

[Yvan256]

You could also combine that idea with a social study by actually calling your pills "Placebo" (or something that sounds like it).

Re:hmm

[Valdez]

Now, I'm not seeking to excuse anyone's short attention span, but keep in mind your 30 minute time slot only has 20 minutes of content (which is part fluff itself)... and ~10 minutes of advertisements.

If even 50% of the "content" is useful... you're already starting at 10 minutes of actually useful stuff...

The point is, moreso than short attention spans, we just don't want to have to invest 30 minutes of time for 10 minutes of value.

Re:hmm

[packeteer]

Unix joke? Its just a blatent reference to sex, where is the unix part involved in my sig?

Re:hmm

[MajinBlayze]

what does fsck have to do with sex? on second thought, don't answer that :) *the smile indicates that this is meant in jest, not as flamebait :)

Re:hmm

[SuperDuperMan]

If you are pressed for time spend that 6 minutes watching something other than the crap they mentioned!

Ricki Lake!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

YES! Ricki Lake! My life-long dream has been fulfilled.

My eyes are crooked and weak

[Timesprout]

I dont know if I can watch that fast.

huh

[aquabat]

This reminds me of those old half hour versions of Knight Rider they used to show on Saturday mornings. They would edit out all the drama dialogue, so that all that was left were the Hoff talking to his Firebird and Lots of Turbo boosts. Basically only scenes with action music under them.

They're doing the same thing with Holmes on Homes, on HGTV. Personally, I can't stand it, but I'm one of those guys who always waits for the extended edition of a film to be released before buying it.

I guess I like my entertainment for the nutrition, rather than the taste.

Re:huh

[TheRealMindChild]

I used to love Knight Rider as a kid... I ended up buying a couple of seasons on DVD. Man, what a waste. Being older and wiser you can see plain as day that the plot structure was basically the same on every show... almost down to the very second the plotline would unfold the same way.

I used to like the show House too... but it suffers the exact same problem, albeit more busy (more going on).

Re:huh

[hob42]

On GSN, they compress Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for extra commercial space too. Though you can't catch the dropped frames, it's pretty obvious when everyone's voices suddenly go up in pitch by a few steps.

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

House suffered from that for a while, before they started focusing more on the doctors. It's gotten a lot more diverse in the past season or so, and it's been particularly good since they finished the drawn-out cop-that-hates-House storyline.

Re:huh

[vux984]

They're doing the same thing with Holmes on Homes, on HGTV.

Actually that's a good candidate. Its a show that is part informative, but mostly just fluff punctuated by pointless scenes of banging, sawing, pouring concrete, or carrying wood, etc. I find the content of the show interesting enough, but all I want is the 6 minutes that are acutally relevant...

1) What the situation is.
2) What was done.
3) Why/How it was done.
4) The finished product

I don't want or need to see the poor homeowner moan at the start about her life, or jump up and down all giddy at the end. And I don't need all the busywork. And above all I especially don't need to see what's "coming up after the commercial break" immediately before the commercial break. Nor am I a retarded moron that needs to be reminded of what I saw previously in the same half hour episode every 4 minutes. I can easily see watching an episode in 5-6 minutes.

Mythbusters, is just as bad. As are most 'project' or 'infotainment' shows.

News could benefit too. All those teaser "Coming up next" or "Is Cheerios killing your dog? Stay tuned and find out after this..." segments have turned me off the watching TV news.

Re:huh

[chiefnewo]

I find Knight Rider is great filler entertainment. If you've got forty odd minutes to waste while you're waiting for something, an episode of Knight Rider is a great way to waste it. It certainly doesn't hold up to viewing one episode after another though.

Re:huh

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of those old half hour versions of Knight Rider they used to show on Saturday mornings. They would edit out all the drama dialogue, so that all that was left were the Hoff talking to his Firebird and Lots of Turbo boosts. Basically only scenes with action music under them.

I guess I like my entertainment for the nutrition, rather than the taste.

Uh, we are talking Hasselhoff here... It's junk food. You're probably better off with a quick taste off the 99 cent menu, not the super size version.

In general all of these condensed shows on the site are pure retro camp. We're not talking about condensing Deadwood or Rome to just the violent scenes at the expense of the dialogue.. It's friggin' Silver Spoons.

Personally, I can't stand it, but I'm one of those guys who always waits for the extended edition of a film to be released before buying it.

Director's cuts getting it right after they were screwed by the studios is one thing, but at the same time many "extended version" and "DVD extra scenes" were cut for a reason. Longer running time does not necessarily make a better movie. I think the extended Apocalypse Now may be a good example of a great movie made worse when "extended" (the plantation scene, for example..)

Not to say that's always the case, of course, but there's something to be said for tight editing in storytelling too. And keep in mind a lot of the appeal to "extended" movies is for the fans to find something new in the second viewing; that's a completely different experience, in which case the viewer would have a lot more patience for awkardness or meandering that wouldn't fly in the theater.

Re:huh

[dangitman]

Being older and wiser you can see plain as day that the plot structure was basically the same on every show... almost down to the very second the plotline would unfold the same way.

Michael: Faster, Knight Boat! We gotta catch those starfish poachers.
Knight Boat: You don't have to yell, Michael, I'm all around you.
Michael: Oh, no! They're headed for land.
Michael: We'll never catch them now.
Knight Boat: Incorrect--look! A canal.
Homer: Go, Knight Boat, go!
Bart: Oh, every week there's a canal.
Lisa: Or an inlet.
Bart: Or a fjord.
Homer: Quiet! I will not hear another word against the boat.
Marge: OK, TV off. It's family time.
Homer: Oh, but Marge! Knight Boat, the crime-solving boat!
Marge: Homer, you promised. One night of family time a week. Besides, that back-talking boat sets a bad example.
Bart: Says you, woman.

Re:huh

[spoco2]

"Basically only scenes with action music under them."
"I guess I like my entertainment for the nutrition, rather than the taste."

Bingo, you've hit on the reason why this is a terrible thing... you can condense any movie, book, tv show, whatever, into a much more compact retelling of the main events of the story. However, in doing so you lose the nuances, the humour, the true spirit of the show (unless it really was terrible to begin with). So often the magic of a show is not in the A-B-C events, but in the stuff in between them.

Having said that, this is not new by any means, Reader's Digest has been doing it for decades with their horrible little condensed versions of books.

Urgh

Re:huh

[VGPowerlord]

Knight Boat clip.

Re:huh

[mgblst]

This reminds me of those old half hour versions of Knight Rider they used to show on Saturday mornings. They would edit out all the drama dialogue, so that all that was left were the Hoff talking to his Firebird and Lots of Turbo boosts. Basically only scenes with action music under them.

They're doing the same thing with Holmes on Homes, on HGTV. Personally, I can't stand it, but I'm one of those guys who always waits for the extended edition of a film to be released before buying it.
 
I guess you are one of those guys who like the dialogue in porn movies as well.

Re:huh

[doconnor]

They're doing the same thing with Holmes on Homes, on HGTV. Personally, I can't stand it, but I'm one of those guys who always waits for the extended edition of a film to be released before buying it.

Are you sure you wheren't watching reruns of the first couple seasons of Holmes on Homes when the show was only half an hour long?

Re:huh

[aquabat]

I wasn't aware that the show was ever shot to be half an hour long. I could swear that, of all the condensed episodes I've seen, I've also seen a full hour version.

Today on Maury...

[KillerCow]

Who's the father of Kisha's baby? Tyrone.

Tune in next week!

Re:Today on Maury...

[Dachannien]

As for the out-of-control-teens episodes, those can usually be summed up in one word:

"Whatever."

Ricki Lake in only six minutes?

[Bluesman]

Oh NO they did NOT!

They bettah check themselves, because they a bunch a' stank hoes over at Minisodes. MmmmmHMMM!

Re:Ricki Lake in only six minutes?

[Bluesman]

Excuse me for replying to my own post, but there's a grammar error.

<hand on hips>

They bettah check THEYselves, because they a bunch a' stank hoes over at Minisodes. MmmmmHMMM!

</hand on hips>

Thank you for your time.

That is easy to explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Television and cinemas never had any nor ever will have any substance. Try reading a classic book or even try a play or an opera. Much more subtance than the idiot boxes and idiot buildings commonly known as television and cinemas.

Re:That is easy to explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, they saw you hated America. If you are here in America, be thankful you can get aqway with such comments demoncrat.

Re:That is easy to explain

[FLEB]

Tired opinion, sans backing. Overgeneralized. Easily refutable with counterexamples. All-in-all, fluff, with no real purpose save possibly trolling. I'd support the mod.

Re:That is easy to explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Television and cinemas never had any nor ever will have any substance. Try reading a classic book or even try a play or an opera. Much more subtance than the idiot boxes and idiot buildings commonly known as television and cinemas. Let me guess, you're this guy.

Re:That is easy to explain

[residieu]

I bet I could chop out 3/4 of any book you choose and still tell the basic story as well as these minisodes do. We don't have time for any of this character development crap, we need to get it down to 100 pages.

Re:That is easy to explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is the idiot box picture shows aren't known for character development. It's just the same formula, fluff in different ways to appease the low IQ portion of the population. I was addicted to television like a lot of others are. When the picture tube went on my TV I didn't replace it. Eventually I found I wasn't actually missing it as I was doing more constructive things around the house and in the community. Books are often filed with many things like character development, plot twists, drama, and backstories. Books also require someone to use their imagination, unlike TV and movies which only requires someone staring at a screen letting someone else do the thinking for them. When pages are taken out of a story, then someone will get confused as to what is happening. A movie is generally a book that is already condensed, that is one of the reasons why I don't watch movies.

I agree with the original post to watch play at a real theatre or an opera. But go further than that, get involved in theatre, or if you can sing really well get into opera. You are required to use your imagination to play your part.

By eliminating your television addiction you can also get into culinary arts classes if it's available. You can then learn to fix wonderful meals for you and your family rather than wasting your money at restaurants.

Trust me, when I eliminated television I was more creative, more involved in the community, and I became more involved with my family. I don't miss the idiot box one bit and you will be the same once you eliminate it as well.

Been there shun that

[Tablizer]

I've noticed they've been compressing Trek reruns by dropping occassional frames. It creates jerky motions that are annoying, such as when a ship glides by. It also seems to occasionally scramble a word or two. I think I would rather have a human decide where to cut than randomly drop frames, although both suck.

Re:Been there shun that

[Vegeta99]

Thats because commercial breaks were 3 minutes when those episodes were made, and now? 4+. Gotta make more room.

Blipverts!

[geoff lane]

I'm more and more convinced that TV companies think that Max Headroom is a model to copy rather than a warning.

Re:Blipverts!

[0xDEAD]

Oh where art thou mod points, where art thou?

Re:Blipverts!

[Ginnungagap42]

/ Checks to see if somebody mentioned blipverts. Yup. Very good. Carry on.

You don't have to watch everything

[Anonymous Coward]

"...a long-overdue public service... So much video from TV, DVDs, the Internet and even cell phones ... but too little time to watch it all?"

I don't think it's a service to the public. Nobody needs to watch everything. Sometimes it's better if you don't - if you don't have the time or don't want to put in an effort. Just because you have read the 40-pages condensed version, don't think that you have actually read the novel or play. You have not. The creation of half-informed population does not help to face the ever increasing complexity of issues that the society needs to address.

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[Joebert]

Have you ever had anyone superglue your eyelashes to your eyebrows when you were passed out drunk ?

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[noidentity]

Wait, you're saying that these TV shows are fiction and aren't actual worlds that I'm missing out on if I don't watch?

(been TV-free for about 6 years now and haven't missed a thing)

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[jez9999]

I don't think it's a service to the public. Nobody needs to watch everything.

For me, Minisode's greatness is not about watching everything. It's about one thing: Introducing me to Sheena; the most original excuse to show off a cute blonde's breasts I've EVER seen.

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[Zantetsuken]

Nobody needs to watch everything.

And in many cases, nor *should* people watch everything - and some shows shouldn't even be on the air at all for how idiotic they are. I mean, thanks to shows like "Survivor" people will actually think now that when stranded on some random desert island they will magically be rewarded with matches or whatnot. How many people think they can actually sing or make lyrics due to "American Idol" and the 20 clone shows airing???

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[Mex]

This post was too long can someone please condense it for me to read

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you're saying that these TV shows are fiction and aren't actual worlds that I'm missing out on if I don't watch?
(been TV-free for about 6 years now and haven't missed a thing) Let me guess, you're this guy http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[3choTh1s]

Nobody needs to watch everything. Sometimes it's better if you don't - if you don't have the time or don't want to put in an effort. Just because you have read the 40-pages condensed version, don't think that you have actually read the novel or play. You have not.

Just because sometimes it's better doesn't mean sometimes it's not. Just because I have never read Moby Dick doesn't mean that sometimes I want to know what my friends are talking about when they mention it. Sure I wouldn't get the same flavor and context as someone who has actually read the book but sometimes I don't need it, or have the time to get it. This is the life we lead today. We are entirely too busy with our lives trying to make enough money to be comfortable and yet try to keep up with everybody else. And better yet these little tidbits often just show us what we're really missing by not really reading the book/watching the show. Personally I've never taken to actually reading these condensed books/shows but I can see where they hold appeal.

Btw for those of you really are crammed with work/school/life, try DailyLit.com . They let you read entire books very conveniently. You pick a book(generally they hold the classics, I just finished The Art of War) and they send you bite sized text that should take 5 minutes to read, either through email or RSS. Some of the books are rather long and it might take you a year to get through but you'll get through it even with the most hectic schedules.

Re:You don't have to watch everything

[trevorgensch]

Perhaps - to me this sort of condensing is the type of service that I mainly use Wikipedia for - learning about something in a quick and timely manner, without having to read 600 back issues of a comic, or seven seasons of a television show.

I am part of a podcast that covers a wide range topics, some of which I have never encountered before. Wikipedia is a great resource for getting a good head start on understanding these topics.

Condensed shows are the same - I wouldn't mind at all if they condensed Lost to 6 minute eps - I think they would work well in that case. But until they offer something a bit more worthy than Starsky and Hutch I will not avail myself of the service.

Gilligan!

[Tablizer]

Does this mean they'll have to change the theme song to "20 minute tour" instead of 3 hour tour?

Genius!

[SinGunner]

This is the perfect thing for anime!

Re:Genius!

[Silverlancer]

Yeah, they could condense Noir into 5 episodes. Then it might actually be worth watching.

Re:Genius!

[poopdeville]

Or Dragon Ball into 26! I'm gonna send them an email.

Re:Genius!

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thought of pr0n first?

Re:Genius!

[egoproxy]

No one has time to watch OVER 9000 episodes anyway.

Re:Genius!

[SamSim]

Not all anime is excrutiatingly slow-paced, but I would definitely be interested to see what they come up with regarding Dragonball Z. Underneath the tedious "Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"s and filler there are some good concepts and the occasional decent fight scene. Paring the whole thing down to ~2 hours per saga could only be a good thing.

Up the Ritalin

[bunburyist]

If you can't sit for 21 minutes and watch the .avi you seriously need to up the ritalin. Or maybe simplify your life.

Oblig

[Tablizer]

I welcm r quik ovrlrds

Re:Oblig

[quirli_joe]

In soviet russia, time has you to watch them. All of them.

An eloquent retort

[Night Goat]

Yeah, Ricki, this is for that blue man guy. Dump the zero and get with the hero, girlfriend! Talk to the hand!

Speed Watching

[Anonymous Coward]

I typically watch dvd's of TV shows at 175% speed (the limit on my player) it takes a little getting used to, to keep up with the audio.
For complex scenes (rare) I may slow down to 120%

Re:Speed Watching

[kebes]

For awhile I used to watch the evening news using this method. I had my MythTV set to record the 6-o'clock news, so that when I got home I would watch it at high-speed. By skipping commercials and segments I wasn't interested in (especially the numerous fluff pieces), and by setting the playback speed to ~150%, I could watch an hour of news in 8-12 minutes.

It worked fine, and taught me that TV has a very high ratio of filler to content.

Re:Speed Watching

[Anonymous Coward]

i do this as well using windvd:) up to 2x playback with normalized sound. most shows just arent information dense enough to get anywhere near overwhelming one even at 2x. great for bonus features/commentary.

Re:Speed Watching

[maccallr]

Indeed... even BBC news is full of fluff these days - I don't need a specially filmed segment to tell me what an oil rig (or whatever) is. And what about all those tedious 1 hour reality programmes that go like this: "and after the break we see how Terry got on at the dentist" and then "before the break we saw how Terry tried to eat a toffee apple" - they could easily fit in 30mins.

No more Joost for you!

[hob42]

Gotta stop letting people watch old episodes of Max Headroom on Joost.

(Just watched the blipverts episode last night. Freaky.)

Not enough time?

[evilviper]

Not enough time to watch? Get a DVR. Intros, credits, and (mainly) commercials make up 33% the length of any TV shows.

Plus, you waste less of your time, due to repeats. Remember, it's standard for series to produce a total of about 15 episodes annually... while there are 52 weeks in a year. So if you're a time-slot watcher, you're just wasting most of your time.

As to the subject at hand, I'd like to see it go the other way. Give me a few short hours of quality shows each week, and I'd be happy. Shortening it would be counter productive, if there's any actual content to them.

Re:Not enough time?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Incorrect.

AMERICAN TV series average 15 episode a year. Japan for example has series which make 52 a year, every year.

Re:Not enough time?

[russotto]

American prime time shows are typically 26 episodes per year, not 15. Subtract a few for recap episodes, and you're still over 20.

recaps?

[slimyrubber]

Whats really the point of this? You miss out on all the small jokes and general expressions.. So what if you understand the story... you get to see zero character development. This is somewhat like watching only recaps. There is no dept, so it will probably kill the show.

Re:recaps?

[Kjella]

Whats really the point of this?

Not feeling left out the watercooler while wasting 1/10th of the time? Sounds to me like the only meaningful use, if you really did like it then you'd watch it. This would be like just reading the plot summary of a book.

Re:recaps?

[slimyrubber]

Not quite, because you get a really condensed version of the complete story and not just the summary.
Slightly related.. check out movie-a-minute if you havent already. Now _thats_ condensing.

http://www.rinkworks.com/movieaminute/

Oh yea

[suv4x4]

I wanna see the 5 min Transformers movie version, with all the robots edited out! Man, that would ROCK.

Re:Oh yea

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave the military, defense, and family scenes out too. Then we're left with the movie worth watching. Mmmmm Megan Fox.

If only they could

[slickwillie]

design an Intelligence Pass filter. That would reduce the length even more. Hell, it might even go negative.

Great way to filter the crap

[Megajim]

If anyone thinks the plot of a particular show can still be understood after such massive editing, then the show wasn't worth watching in the first place. The true public service is that we get a nice list of shows that aren't worth the waste of time, be it 48, 22 or six minutes.

been there, done that

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of when I cuttet out that drama-whore in Casino to make the film more watchable...

Finally!

[captainboogerhead]

A non-infuriating way to watch Lost.

Re:Finally!

[Poromenos1]

The only non-infuriating way to Lost is this summary:

People land on island, stuff happens for three months but none of it makes sense.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that summary also makes me angry.

All operas in 1 line

[rduke15]

If they reduce everything to the bare minimum, what is that minimum? The plot? Well, if we go that route, we can hear/read/see all stories ever told in half a day. Was it Borges who said there were only about half a dozen possible plots, and then listed them? So what would we do the rest of our lives?

As for operas, in case you didn't know, they are the story of a passion between a soprano and a tenor, with a baritone who disagrees. Now that you know the plot, you can spare yourself weeks of watching/listening to operas. Thank me...

Re:All operas in 1 line

[Anonymous Coward]

As for operas, in case you didn't know, they are the story of a passion between a soprano and a tenor, with a baritone who disagrees. Now that you know the plot, you can spare yourself weeks of watching/listening to operas. Thank me... Here's an overview.

Re:All operas in 1 line

[Anonymous Coward]

I can certainly imagine Borges said or wrote something like this, but I understand (second-hand, admittedly) that Kurt Vonnegut once ran through plot templates like this with the aid of graphs at a literary conference a friend of mine attended. Something like: " ... and then our hero sees the girl (line goes up) but, no!, she is already taken (line goes down), until he discovers ..." and that sort of thing. (The conference was held in Ann Arbor in about the late 80s or early 90s, if anyone has a reference. For all I know, Vonnegut was quoting and illustrating Borges. Anyone have a more certain reference?)

Bunny Theatre

[rlp]

Thirty Second Bunny Theatre had been condensing movies to thirty seconds for a while.

Contentless programmes?

[jareth-0205]

I think by far the scariest thing about this site is how the episodes don't seem to have lost anything in the edit.

30 Rock!

[Anonymous Coward]

i did not RTFA but from the title of this article this seems like out of the 30 Rock episode where a corporate guy had an ideia about 15 second shows!

What took them so long?

[syousef]

I've often commented as the credits came up on 1/3rd of the screen, too small to see, in fast forward that TV was quickly heading this way and that soon you'd have very short shows and much longer periods filled with commercials. Pretty soon all channels will have as much to offer as the shopping network (ie. nothing) and the execs wonder why ratings go down.

Are minisodes for illiterates?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I miss an episode of Coronation Street, I can read the ~1000 word summary (at http://www.corrie.net/ in about 2 minutes with more detail and comprehension than I would get by watching the equivalent 2 minute "blipverted" minisode.

Keeping up with my generation

[Joebert]

It's refreshing to see TV is keeping pace with my sex drive.

Ray Bradbury must be proud

[Anonymous Coward]

Fahrenheit 451 has truly arrived.

Release the Hounds!

Re:Ray Bradbury must be proud

[VTBassMatt]

I was waiting for someone to post this! "Digests, digests of digests, digest-digests of digest" (or something to that effect)...

Re:30 Rock! -Makin it Happen!

[voidstin]

damn, I was gonna post that. 10 second sitcoms - It was brilliant.

Here's a link to the episode and the whole season of minishows -"Makin it Happen"

30 rock is amazing. I bought a bunch of 30 rock episodes on itunes and watch the episodes again and again - that's the only time I've ever bought TV except for season 1 of the sopranos on dvd.

so, to keep this on topic, yes it's a stupid idea. even tv people mock it.

white bread vs. whole grain bread

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a piece of white bread like wonderbread or whatever. Squish it into a ball. You can get it pretty small, smaller than a golf ball.

Take a piece of whole grain bread (heavy, hard, very nutritious). Attempt to squish it into a ball. Can't really do it. If you do, it's nowhere near as small as the white bread ball.

That's because there's very little in the white bread. It's just air.

YAH FEEL ME DOGZ?

Reader's Digest patent

[flyingfsck]

Doesn't Reader's Digest hold a patent on 'condensed books'?

Wot, no advertising?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all they have to do is edit out the adverts or something.
That easily cuts down the length of a show by about 50%...

Dilbert mini-episode

[debile]

I knew my title would catch your attention :) Dilbert: The blue duck one: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids. showvids&friendID=191067814 Charles

Peanuts

[Mad-cat]

Reminds me of a Peanuts strip Schultz ran in the 50s.

Lucy bugs Charlie Brown into reading her a story. He reads:
"Once upon a time and they all lived happily ever after."

Condensed story-telling in its early stages.

im80scompressionheaven

[British]

I used to watch many of these shows featured(diffrent strokes, silver spoons, etc) on Comcast's On Demand, which lasted only 20 minutes without commercials. It shows you just how brief a 30 minute tv show is.

This just takes it further. Take out the usual main characters insulting each other, some off-topic banter, stitch the main 'situation' and the apology/lesson afterward, and you're done.

Beautiful. It showed you just how formulatic these shows were/are.

Unfortunately...

[WereRaven]

Half of each minisode is taken up by the "Previously on Lost" segment.

30 Rock == vacuous tripe

[Anonymous Coward]

oh please... baldwin is an idiot and bad actor, notwithstanding his excellent reputation as a patient, understanding, and empathetic spousal partner and father...

Re:30 Rock == vacuous tripe

[Anonymous Coward]

oh please... baldwin is an idiot and bad actor, notwithstanding his excellent reputation as a patient, understanding, and empathetic spousal partner and father... Kim Basinger, is that you?

Someone saw this coming...

[urbanradar]

David Brin predicted exactly this in his novel "Earth", which was published, IIRC, in the late 1980s...

Re:Someone saw this coming...

[Anonymous Coward]

well, John Brunner saw it coming (Stand On Zanzibar, The Shockwave Rider), Paddy Chayefsky saw it coming (Network), JG Ballard saw it coming (various), PK Dick saw it coming (various) earlier than that...
The list goes on.

Six minutes? That's rubbish

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

If it's possible to condense a whole book into three paragraphs:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil1883/condense.html

Surely it should be possible to do better with 30 minutes of TV?

Blah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are our attention spans getting that short? Seriously, what good cou

Nice!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> popular television shows that have been strategically condensed down
> to somewhere between four and six minutes.

I could use this service for about 99% of my pr0n.

4 minutes per episode?

[Anonymous Coward]

it offers, for our streaming pleasure, episodes of vintage Sony Pictures Television series like 'Silver Spoons,' 'Starsky & Hutch,' 'Diff'rent Strokes' and even Ricki Lake's talk show.

Pffft.. 4 minutes per episode?

You go girl!
You ignoant!
You too fat to wear dat!
You a dog!
Why did you leave me dad?
Go ricki!

There's a summary of the entire Ricki Lake run in 6 sentences

Re: Married with Children and Baywatch ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... should be condensed to 4-6 minutes of closeups of Christina Applegate's and Pamela Anderson's boobs, respectively. That would be a public service. It would save a lot of pre-teens from having to watch the shows to get to the good parts.

Not sure this will fly...

[jejones]

Have they made a deal with the copyright holders? If they haven't, won't they go down the same road as the outfit that sold bowdlerized versions of movies?

Wow!

[machrider]

This is great news for people with ADD or ADHD.

Ew

[Gundanium]

This gives me a bad vibe of Fahrenheit 451.

Had to be said...

[deblau]

Copyright lawsuits in: 3... 2... 1...

This Isn't Really New

[Anonymous Coward]

True Story: Circa 1981 I worked at a state school for the mentally retarded. The rec dept. guy had a 16mm projector on which the residents could watch movies. The reels could only hold about 10 minutes of film, and so we had these ultracondensed movies (Close Encounters, however, was a 2-reel extravaganza!) I recall an old b&w werewolf flick in which the exposition was basically "I will now test this Wolf Radiation Serum on myself!" Economy in storytelling. He brought the machine to a party at someone's 3-decker and came to me saying, "Tom, you gotta help me, I can't thread the projector because I'm too drunk!" I on the other hand was only almost too drunk, and after five or ten minutes got CE3K rolling. By this time everyone had wandered somewhere else. Well, at least I didn't get my tongue caught in it like in that SNL sketch with Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest. I hate it when that happens.

Has anyone looked at the offerings?

[svunt]

It's nothing but 30 year old sitcoms that weren't particularly cool in the first place! I mean, you can concentrate shit, and what you get is concentrated shit. Which is bad.

Ahem...

[JRHelgeson]

ADHDTV anyone?

Re:Ahem...

[RMH101]

[claps]

Shit, I can do that at home

[Legion303]

Condensing sitcoms to around 6 minutes is a simple matter of time shifting and skipping the 24 minutes' worth of commercials.

Great idea

[sharok]

For all you people who do not have time to read books, here's a condensed version of The Lord of The Rings :

Frodo got a magic ring from his uncle and traveled to Mordor to destroy it. It wasn't always easy, but he made it.

Now let's try a condensed version of a random Star Trek TOS episode :

Something bad happens or is going to happen and the Enterprise swoops in and saves the day. And Kirk gets the girl.

I think that the second try is much more representative, but still, I'd much rather read the book and see the episode.

My idea

[cluke]

I had a similar idea for today's "time poor" consumer who nonetheless must watch everyhing - a player that would show the episodes sped up by, say, 5% (though this could be variable). Everything would seem a bit off speedwise, but not so much so that it would be unwatchable, and you save a small but not insignificant bit of time! Would be good for journalists on tight deadlines!

It came to me when I read that movies which are 24fps in the movies are playing at 25fps on TV, so the runtimes are slightly shorter.

Re:My idea

[Anonymous Coward]

My TV recorder (panasonic HDD) has a button for watching recordings 30% faster than normal, but keeping the pitch the same. Not great for music or smooth pans, but quite watchable for many types of program.

Useful

[pelago]

Personally, I would find this service useful as a way to find an episode which you know you've seen in the past but can't remember which one it was, as you could look through them and hopefully recognise it. Or alternatively, if you think you may have missed an episode in a season, you could check through to see which ones you don't recognise. You could then download or buy the full episodes that you want to see from somewhere else. I don't always find that summaries in episode guides are enough to jog my memory, but a video summary might do the trick.

I don't get this!

[Whiteox]

6 minute TV episodes!!! Does that include commercials? That's brilliant but...
Why not movies?
Every time I think of something, someone else gets there first.
1. MP3 player - I thought of sticking a bit of ram to a simple prog on a rom, a small amp and presto! About 35 years before the first ones came around.
2. Holographic memory - Simple, but thought that reading it would be the task.
3. 15 min Titanic! I'm sure I can edit the whole damn movie down to 15mins or less... Never got around to it!

AND: The next brilliant idea that I have is a new theory of evolution!

Condensed Scripts

[Shoten]

An episode of "Dr. Phil":

Guest: "I'm thirteen! I'm old enough to have all the children I want with my 40-year old brother! I've had three so far and nothing bad has happened...I'm going to keep having them!"

Dr. Phil: "You suck. Bad."

Guest: "You're right, Dr. Phil. Maybe I'll straighten up after all."

An episode of "Everyone Loves Raymond"

Raymond: "God, I'm so insecure that it makes me utterly inept. At everything."

Everyone else: "Yeah, but that's just because we're all so sadistic that we circle around you and stomp your brains out in unison when you mess up even slightly, rather than try to support you."

An episode of "Seinfeld"

""

I remember...

[UsualDosage]

...watching Max Headroom in the late 80's and thinking "Blipvert? That will never catch on.". Once again, reality mirrors science fiction. I guess all I have to look forward to now is the 30 second version of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant".

Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the perfect site for poseurs who have no real interest in a show, and just want to know salient details so they can lie about having seen it. I fail to see who else would use it - people who like to watch the show will, and those who just want summaries will go to any number of episode summary sites.

Finally!

[Fission86]

I can finally know the secrets of Lost without having to sit still for hours at a time!

*weeps with joy!*
*ADD kicks in, becomes occupied by a piece of string*

This is so stupid!!!!

[Inoyun]

I'm going there now.

related: match box tv

[lebjoot]

perfect for Sharp Pencil Quality TV
This guy made a tv in a match box.

Yu-Gi-Oh abridged

[kalirion]

This has already been done, and quite well too.

LittleKuriboh did it first

[Anonymous Coward]

With his "Yugioh! The Abridged Series" Takes Yugioh episodes, and even series, cuts out the junk, and leaves about 5 minutes. Also redubs it so it's actually entertaining.

Can you imagine Dragon Ball Z with all the grunting scenes cut out?

Fahrenheit 451

[gnuman99]

This is straight out of Fahrenheit 451. The entire reason they burnt books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

Summary of the summary of the summary. One line news. One line shows. Single word summaries. Burn the books!

We see it all the time. From presidential election to reasons for war. Sound bites. No substance.

tv no longer entertains?

[itcdr]

isn't the whole idea of television to entertain for as long as possible?

forget that. get the entire episode:

http://tv-links.co.uk/ - watch full tv online (like youtube)

http://sharetv.org/ - download tons of full tv shows for free

that's how you watch tv!