Re: TV commercial timing?

In article <bc8p04pmc3hjphcc7kp9ovp39dg32rv468@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Neal Eckhardt  <neckhardt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:09:56 -0500, msb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Mark Brader) wrote:
> 
> >"Andy":
> >> Do all channels go to commercials at the same time? Seems so on my
cable TV.
> >
> >I think it's mostly that a certain length of show naturally falls into
a
> >certain number of acts.  For 30-minute sitcoms you usually have a short
> >teaser (i.e. prolog), two acts, and maybe a short epilog; for 1-hour
> >dramas it's four acts (remember those old Quinn Martin producitons that
> >numbered them in Roman numerals?) instead of two.  There's variation in
> >the lengths of individual acts, and sometimes the prolog and/or epilog
> >are skipped, but the typical result is going to be that if two channels
> >are showing the same sort of show, they're likely to have a lot of
> >simultaneous commercial breaks.
> >
> >And even if not, the amount of commercial time these days is large
enough
> >that random chance would produce commercials at the same time on
different
> >channels.
> >
> >Of course this is about North American TV, with almost all shows
starting on
> >the hour or half-hour.  Elsewhere may be different.  It often is.
> 
> I can watch a one hour show in 40 minutes on my DVR. So most shows are
> about 1/3 commercials. 

My former DVR software (something branded by ATI) had a feature where it
could speed up or slow down playback by a quarter or a third without
affecting pitch.  I miss that.  But yeah, 1-hour shows take 44 minutes or
so.  They're shorter if you skip the opening sequence and/or credits.
0:40 is pretty short.  How do you do that?

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