5 ms·

I'm surprised that I was able to perceive individual characters. At the beginning when the movie is displaying the alphabet it seems like I can see each letter.

I'm surprised that I was able to perceive individual characters. At the beginning when the movie is displaying the alphabet it seems like I can see each letter. Is this really one character per frame (assuming playback at 24 frames per second)? Edit: 49,571 (characters) divided by 25 (frames per second) comes out to 1,982.84. 1,982.84 seconds is 33.03 minutes. Taking into account the padding at the beginning and end of the video reveals that the video displays 1 character per frame at 25 frames per second.

chc 15y ago
This is why there's a push for high-FPS video — 25 FPS is really too slow to look smooth without a lot of blurring or an audience that's very willing to overlook slight flicker.
jerf 15y ago
Some people adapt this into a system they claim helps speed read [1], and while I don't particularly believe the speed reading claims it is true that you can actually read quite quickly with words flashing at fairly high rates. There are various sites online that can help you play with this, but I can't get any of them to work on the machine I'm posting this on (no Java, zapreader.com doesn't work for unknown reasons). [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentatio...
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  I could buy the speed reading claims, perhaps at slightly slower rates. One of the cool things about language and our brains is you can miss letters and get order mixed up, and instantly guess what was meant with a very high rate of success. Emxalpe: I persmue you sitll udnr snatd tis?
  - Rondrak 15y ago
    sliverstorm, I don't want to take this too far off topic, but what are the rates you're hearing of that you have trouble believing? I read at a little over 1,300 words per minute (and I keep getting faster). As to comprehension, without taking a test it's hard to say, but by reading a section of material for a few minutes, writing down everything I can remember without looking at the book, then re-reading to see what I've missed, I seem to get roughly 80% comprehension, which I find acceptable for most things (and it keeps getting better through practice). Disclaimer: That's depending on the material, I read at about half that rate (around 600 wpm) if it's extremely technical or dense, or a good deal faster in anything at or below a high school reading level.
    - sliverstorm 15y ago
      What I have trouble believing is that anyone could, using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (which was the subject of the comment I replied to) process characters (or words) that flash on the screen as fast as (or faster than) 25fps. Problem with serial presentation is of course, you cannot skip words or process words in parallel. I suspect when you attain 1,300wpm, you are focusing your eyes on half a page or perhaps the entire page, and only skimming sentences and absorbing key words and ideas, rather than processing each word one at a time.
      - Rondrak 15y ago
        Ah, my apologies for misunderstanding your comment. That's what I get for attempting rational thought at one in the morning. Before I learned to speed read the way I currently do, I tried learning using RSVP. In my personal experience I didn't find it very helpful, and my comprehension rates (when using RSVP) plummeted. I'm in complete agreement there. As to my 1,300wpm, you're partially correct. 1,200wpm is just about the limit at which I can read word by word, line by line in a book, using my hand as a pacer. After 1,200, I stop dropping conjunctions, pronouns, and prepositions, and anything that can be inferred through context or isn't necessary to the meaning of the sentence (e.g. - absorbing key words and ideas, but still more precise than 1/2 a page at a time). Here's the book I learned from so you can judge the merits based upon something better than my attempted explanation: http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Rapid-Reading-Peter-Kump/dp/073520019X?tag=duckduckgo-d-20 http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Rapid-Reading-Peter-Kump/...
sliverstorm 15y ago
You can perceive them because they 'burn into' your retina and leave an after-image. Your eyes act as a queue or buffer of sorts; by the time your brain registers the character (especially characters outside the latin alphabet, and arabic numeral system- characters your brain sees and recalls much less often), several other characters have already flashed by. You don't notice this effect with contiguous video, but 25fps becomes more of a problem with high-speed action flicks and their ilk.
tintin 15y ago
I'm also surprised the codec can handle this quite well. I expected a lot more artifacts.

chc 15y ago

This is why there's a push for high-FPS video — 25 FPS is really too slow to look smooth without a lot of blurring or an audience that's very willing to overlook slight flicker.

jerf 15y ago

Some people adapt this into a system they claim helps speed read [1], and while I don't particularly believe the speed reading claims it is true that you can actually read quite quickly with words flashing at fairly high rates. There are various sites online that can help you play with this, but I can't get any of them to work on the machine I'm posting this on (no Java, zapreader.com doesn't work for unknown reasons). [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentatio...

sliverstorm 15y ago
I could buy the speed reading claims, perhaps at slightly slower rates. One of the cool things about language and our brains is you can miss letters and get order mixed up, and instantly guess what was meant with a very high rate of success. Emxalpe: I persmue you sitll udnr snatd tis?
- Rondrak 15y ago
  sliverstorm, I don't want to take this too far off topic, but what are the rates you're hearing of that you have trouble believing? I read at a little over 1,300 words per minute (and I keep getting faster). As to comprehension, without taking a test it's hard to say, but by reading a section of material for a few minutes, writing down everything I can remember without looking at the book, then re-reading to see what I've missed, I seem to get roughly 80% comprehension, which I find acceptable for most things (and it keeps getting better through practice). Disclaimer: That's depending on the material, I read at about half that rate (around 600 wpm) if it's extremely technical or dense, or a good deal faster in anything at or below a high school reading level.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    What I have trouble believing is that anyone could, using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (which was the subject of the comment I replied to) process characters (or words) that flash on the screen as fast as (or faster than) 25fps. Problem with serial presentation is of course, you cannot skip words or process words in parallel. I suspect when you attain 1,300wpm, you are focusing your eyes on half a page or perhaps the entire page, and only skimming sentences and absorbing key words and ideas, rather than processing each word one at a time.
    - Rondrak 15y ago
      Ah, my apologies for misunderstanding your comment. That's what I get for attempting rational thought at one in the morning. Before I learned to speed read the way I currently do, I tried learning using RSVP. In my personal experience I didn't find it very helpful, and my comprehension rates (when using RSVP) plummeted. I'm in complete agreement there. As to my 1,300wpm, you're partially correct. 1,200wpm is just about the limit at which I can read word by word, line by line in a book, using my hand as a pacer. After 1,200, I stop dropping conjunctions, pronouns, and prepositions, and anything that can be inferred through context or isn't necessary to the meaning of the sentence (e.g. - absorbing key words and ideas, but still more precise than 1/2 a page at a time). Here's the book I learned from so you can judge the merits based upon something better than my attempted explanation: http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Rapid-Reading-Peter-Kump/dp/073520019X?tag=duckduckgo-d-20 http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Rapid-Reading-Peter-Kump/...

sliverstorm 15y ago

You can perceive them because they 'burn into' your retina and leave an after-image. Your eyes act as a queue or buffer of sorts; by the time your brain registers the character (especially characters outside the latin alphabet, and arabic numeral system- characters your brain sees and recalls much less often), several other characters have already flashed by. You don't notice this effect with contiguous video, but 25fps becomes more of a problem with high-speed action flicks and their ilk.

tintin 15y ago

I'm also surprised the codec can handle this quite well. I expected a lot more artifacts.