9
votes
Netflix Reportedly Testing New Variable Playback Feature That Will Show A Film At 1.5x Speed
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- Authors
- Charles Barfield, Matthew Monagle, Gregory Ellwood, Russ Fischer, Robb Sheppard, Jordan Ruimy, Andrew Bundy, Alex Arabian, Bradley Warren, Chris Barsanti, Asher Luberto, Christian Gallichio, Chance Solem-Pfeifer, Griffin Schiller, Ryan Oliver, Andrew Hrip, Harry Frazer, Rodrigo Perez, Jessica Kiang, Oliver Lyttelton, Nikola Grozdanovic, Brynne Ramella, Rafael Motamayor
- Published
- Oct 25 2019
- Word count
- 397 words
Honestly, I think this would be a decent feature for some longer running shows that have multiple seasons you are trying to catch up on and put on in the background. If Season 5 of a show is about to come out and I have not watched it in a long time, it may be nice to speed up the re-binging process.
I don't see an issue with adding in new features on a service like this.
Really goes to show that people like to consume media in vastly different ways.
If something is worth so little of my attention that I can watch it at 1.5x speed in the background, I would be wondering why I'm bothering to watch it at all.
To be clear, this isn't an attack on anyone and I don't mean to yuck anyone's yum, it's just an observation.
It is fairly common for people who like a lot of podcasts to listen to them at 1.5 times speed so that they can get more content per day, just because there is so many good things out there to listen to and they don't have enough hours in the day. I personally don't do that, but I don't think those people are enjoying the content any less.
Though I think when you start getting into listening at 3 times the speed, that is a bit ridiculous
I think the analogy here to completionists is pretty apt. I don't like spending hours of my time grinding out for certain achievements in video games, but there is certainly a large culture in the gaming community to doing just that, and I don't begrudge them for those choices.
The podcast at faster speed I kind of get. Audio books, and even more so movies, I'm very much against listening to accelerated. In addition to what @gaywallet mentioned I think the speed is important. When you communicate with another person, the pauses and silences are part of that communication. They can contribute emphasis, consideration or emotional reaction. Their absence can communicate rudeness or excitement. I think the natural speaking speed of an audio book reader, and even more so a movie or TV show is integral to enjoying the material as the author intended. I hope I don't sound like a purist, where nobody should be allowed to listen to things sped up (my wife does). I believe you do miss something if you do though.
Yes but there's a big difference to listening or watching something at 1.5x+ speed and that being the only thing you are doing, and to having something be 1.5x+ speed in the background. It's a matter of attention. The brain can only focus on and absorb so much information at any one point in time.
Although you do make a good point at 2-3x speed you're going to miss a lot especially if the content is dense or unfamiliar.
I mean personally, I like to watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast when I am cooking, cleaning, driving, doing yard-work and stuff like that. I am not really engaging my brain much, its just a routine task, so I am able to pay attention to the show just fine.
Ahh, okay, yeah I think in that case it's understandable. I was envisioning something which I tend to see fairly often, which is someone interacting with something that requires attention such as reading, studying, gaming, or some other task and having the TV on in the background.
Wow. Do you have any trouble following what some of them are saying at 3x speed? I feel like at that point it would be getting so high pitched and fast it would be difficult to track some of the conversation.
Tangent: if you've never listened to an example of a screen reader read to a blind person, it's incredible. The speed can be adjusted but at higher speeds for the untrained ear, it is almost incomprehensible. And yet it provides one if the key methods for sight challenged people to navigate the internet.
Example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q_ATY9gimOM
I'm pretty sure it'd be possible to analyse subtitle files and detect scenes which include the 'family drama' used to cheaply pad out longer series (i.e in Breaking Bad or Sons of Anarchy). These scenes could then be chopped, reducing the above examples by half. Play at 1.25x, and voila.
Alternatively, Netflix just needs microphone privileges to detect excitement levels in series. Use that to get rid of filler, and create 100 different variations of an episode. Trial these 100 variations with different audiences and get feedback to work out which is the most successful/logical cut, and use that to refine the cutting sequence, and voila!
Looking forward to watch 2001 A Space Odyssey on my lunch break.