LOL — Mystery of the missing minutes: Why are TV shows shorter in New Zealand? | The Spinoff:
White Lotus S3E01 is one hour and one minute long on HBO Max. Here on Neon, it’s just 58 minutes. Severance also appears slightly severed: S2E01 is 50 minutes in the US, but a positively fleeting 48 minutes on AppleTV+ in Aotearoa.
… "The duration difference is due to the differing frame rates between the US and the rest of the world,” they wrote. “It’s an accepted industry practice to slightly speed up playback to match local standards, which can result in shorter runtimes without losing any content."
… HBO shows like The White Lotus, Succession and Game of Thrones are typically mastered at 23.98 frames per second – or fps – whereas the standard in New Zealand is 25 frames per second.
Aeryn that happens here in UK too. We are 25fps. I don’t know if my TV is too modern for that now. I assume it plays at the intended frame rate.
Charles R. Twardy hah, fun! When I was in 🇦🇺 my friends mocked my 🇺🇸 📺 format as “NTSC: Never Twice Same Color”. 😉
Myles Winstone Here in the UK films are shown one frame faster (25fps v 24fps) on broadcast TV which causes the same situation. Don’t think it happens with streamers here though as they rely on TVs being able to show whatever the original FPS is.
Leon Mika That’s interesting. I would’ve thought all these frame-rate differences would be a thing of the past with the move to streaming and LCD TVs.