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Minisode Network Condenses TV Shows to Under Six Minutes

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the readers-digest-television dept.

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."

7 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. huh by aquabat · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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.

    --
    A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    1. Re:huh by hob42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  2. Speed Watching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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%

    1. Re:Speed Watching by kebes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  3. Re:hmm by kebes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:hmm by fritzbrown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.