[mythtv-users] Re: Closed captioning support

Kim Wall kim at ductilebiscuit.net
Fri May 20 23:34:24 UTC 2005


Ross Campbell wrote:

> <Semi-related>
> does anyone else feel like timestretch is there to challenge how fast
> you can watch TV? Do you think people can learn to watch TV faster
> just like people learn to read faster? Is there an upper bound to
> this?

Read up on "rapid serial visual presentation".  Basically, with a little 
practice, you can learn to read (and take in information) much faster 
than your brain can subvocalise the text.  I'm not sure how this 
compares to auditory processing, but it seems logical that the eyes have 
a higher bandwidth than the ears, so with subtitling it should be 
possible to watch TV at stupidly high speeds.

I can certainly follow relatively slow programming at 1.6x or more with 
subtitles while I lose the plot with audio alone at about 1.4x.  That 
may say more about my own (suspected dodgy) auditory processing than 
anything else, but it's still rather cool.



> I wonder what brain signals look like for someone watching TV at
> 1.7X vs. someone watching at 1.0X. My untested hypothesis is that
> while people "zone out" in front of TV at regular speeds, watching TV
> at timstretch factors above 1.5 requires more viewer attention and
> participation and could be a significant mental stimulus as opposed to
> an opiate or "eyeball massage".

I wouldn't be surprised if it became easier with practice.  Which would 
mean you could turn the speed up and up until reaching some sort of 
bandwith limit (eventually the audio will turn to mush, and the video 
will drop so many frames it'll stop making much sense), probably 
determined by the amount of actual 'content' in the programme.


> I can just see it now... yuppie parents sitting their kids in front of
> mythtv to watch Baby Einstein videos at 1.7X speed

I need a <1.0 time stretch factor to make sense of most modern 
children's TV.  Ahh, the ADHD generation...  ;)


kim.


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list