Blank (Media) Slate

Up until recently, few people routinely recorded the TV programming they watched. Usually it was reserved for those occaisions when you needed to record shows while you were away. With the growing use of DVRs like TiVo, it’s becoming much more common for viewers to watch all their shows recorded (if only in pass-through mode).

With that as background, I’ve noticed a number of “TiVo Baiting” techniques being used to ensnare DVR users. OK, that’s a term that just popped into my head, but I think it’s relatively descriptive. What I mean by it is the intentional inclusion of single-frame imagery in TV programming. Watching at the normal 29.9 frames per second of standard video, the images flip too fast for the viewer to fully comprehend. Only when pausing playback, and slowly stepping frame-by-frame through the sequence does it become intelligible.

Take, for example, the rapid flicker of images embedded within a second-season episode of Lost in which the audience is shown glimpses of a character’s past within a mysterious cloud. The non-DVR user just sees an interesting flicker of images and take away the concept that something was shown to the character. With remote in hand, however, the DVR user can step through each frame to consider each image and it’s implication within the story line. There are a number of posts that hit the net immediately after the show with fans chatting up their meaning.

Recently (and the reason for this post), I’ve seen a couple more examples of this technique. One is in the GE commercials in which they use the final second of their ad time to display 24 still frames for something they call “GE One Second Theater“. In this particular case, the images are too fast for non-DVR users to have any idea what they are. Only by stepping through frame-by-frame does the micro story become clear. They’re actually pretty amusing; a few give back story to animated characters in the ad, while another is a retelling of a typical fairy tale through the eyes of a frog (which is only tangentially relevant to the ad itself).

Another example is in the show Heroes. They’ve used the technique twice (that I know of) in promotional teasers. Once when hyping the next show by rapidly showing images of the characters while the VO is something like, “One of these heroes will die. No one is safe.” Each image was a few frames, long enough for the non-DVR viewer to guess they were shots of the characters, but it required slower viewing to see who was on the “potential hit list”. Of course… if you’re hip to the scene of story arcs, it was pretty obvious who was on the chopping block.

The second time I noticed this technique was during the show dealing with the character who was killed. In this instance, it was less a matter of frame-by-frame viewing, but really only the ability to slow it down (ie. real-time viewers might’ve missed it). This time the technique was used to heighten tension by flashing a dozen or so frames of the dead character apparently “coming back to life” between the network’s own promotional commercials.

It’s really only now that this is a technique that can have wide-spread utility. Video tape (even the relatively higher-end 4-head versions), just didn’t have the fine-tune control of a DVR (or other nearly frame-accurate device like a DVD). A side benefit is the relatively random access control of a DVR in which viewers can quickly zip around the recorded show looking for stuff like this (rather than having to forward/reverse linearly through a tape).

What I personally like about the use of this technique I have seen is that they don’t require viewer participation. It’s easy enough to trundle along at 29.9fps and still have a good experience. For those interested in being more interactive with the programming, however, there’s an added layer of discovery to enhance the fun… which seems to be just the right level of activity added to a mostly passive experience.