Minisode Network Condenses TV Shows to Under Six Minutes 160
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."
hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Or am I just being outmoded and stubborn?
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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 sho
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That's it. I'm investing all my money in ADD medicines.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Funny)
MOV... no...
SHR... that's not it either...
ah, now I remember! NOP medicines.
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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.
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Re:hmm (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe. Or maybe it's a reflection of how hard (or easy) it is to squeeze a story into exactly 22 minutes.
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I have a habit of listening to podcasts or books on audio or even radio talk shows like Rick Emerson [rickemerson.com] at
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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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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Fahrenheit 451 (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 [wikipedia.org]
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.
My eyes are crooked and weak (Score:2)
huh (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I used to like the show House too... but it suffers the exact same problem, albeit more busy (more going on).
Re:huh (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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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 abo
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"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 s
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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 a
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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?
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Today on Maury... (Score:5, Funny)
Tune in next week!
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"Whatever."
Ricki Lake in only six minutes? (Score:2)
They bettah check themselves, because they a bunch a' stank hoes over at Minisodes. MmmmmHMMM!
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<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.
An eloquent retort (Score:2)
That is easy to explain (Score:1)
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Been there shun that (Score:2, Insightful)
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Blipverts! (Score:5, Insightful)
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You don't have to watch everything (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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(been TV-free for about 6 years now and haven't missed a thing)
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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.
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Gilligan! (Score:1)
Genius! (Score:2, Funny)
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Up the Ritalin (Score:1)
Oblig (Score:1)
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Speed Watching (Score:1, Interesting)
For complex scenes (rare) I may slow down to 120%
Re:Speed Watching (Score:4, Interesting)
It worked fine, and taught me that TV has a very high ratio of filler to content.
No more Joost for you! (Score:2)
(Just watched the blipverts episode last night. Freaky.)
Not enough time? (Score:2)
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. Short
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AMERICAN TV series average 15 episode a year. Japan for example has series which make 52 a year, every year.
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recaps? (Score:2)
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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.
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Slightly related.. check out movie-a-minute if you havent already. Now _thats_ condensing.
http://www.rinkworks.com/movieaminute/ [rinkworks.com]
Oh yea (Score:2)
If only they could (Score:2)
Great way to filter the crap (Score:1)
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately... (Score:2, Funny)
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People land on island, stuff happens for three months but none of it makes sense.
All operas in 1 line (Score:2)
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/listeni
Bunny Theatre (Score:2)
Contentless programmes? (Score:5, Insightful)
What took them so long? (Score:2)
Keeping up with my generation (Score:2)
Ray Bradbury must be proud (Score:1, Insightful)
Release the Hounds!
Reader's Digest patent (Score:2)
Peanuts (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
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.
Someone saw this coming... (Score:2)
Six minutes? That's rubbish (Score:2)
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil1883/condense.html [ox.ac.uk]
Surely it should be possible to do better with 30 minutes of TV?
Not sure this will fly... (Score:2)
Had to be said... (Score:2)
Has anyone looked at the offerings? (Score:2)
Ahem... (Score:3, Funny)
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Shit, I can do that at home (Score:2)
My idea (Score:2)
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 shorte
Condensed Scripts (Score:2)
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
Yu-Gi-Oh abridged (Score:2)
Re:30 Rock! -Makin it Happen! (Score:2)
Here's a link to the episode [nbc.com] and the whole season of minishows [nbc.com] -"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.