Author Topic: I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)  (Read 1654 times)

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Offline ooboh

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I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)
« on: June 15, 2018, 12:29:11 AM »
Okay, this will be second and FINAL “realization” post, so no need to worry, mods, but I realized something about the Time is Money money clock. Well, either that or I’m looking too deep into this.

The new Time is Money has been on the show for four years now, and it has used, in my opinion, two “different” clocks. Of course, the two clocks are the same in that they both start at $20,000 and decrease at a constant rate of $500 per second, but what I noticed is that the clock used in Season 43 (its first season) looked like it actually fell at a rate of $1 per 2 milliseconds. However, the clock used in Seasons 44, 45, and 46 fell with a much slower resolution, to the point where if you paused a video with the clock in motion, you could clearly see how much money was left on the clock, as opposed to the first clock, where it’s a total blur.

Please tell me if I’m on to something or if I’m babbling.

Offline Mr. Weatherman

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Re: I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2018, 02:34:15 AM »
Based on what you're describing, I would say something changed with the refresh rate of the display, whether it be a new panel was installed or something changed on the computer side.

If a new panel was installed, it could be that the old one only had a refresh rate of, say, 60Hz, which means there are 60 frames of video per second being displayed on the screen. With the money amounts falling at such a rapid rate, 60fps can literally only show 60 individual dollar amounts per second, which may come across as a blur on screen.  Compounding this issue is the fact that the camera is filming at 59.94 fps, interlaced.  I won't go into the technical details of why that's bad, but long story short, you're going to get some blur when filming a screen displaying at 60Hz, as the camera and the display may not be in perfect sync with each other.  However, a higher refresh rate of 240Hz (for instance) would provide much smoother video that cameras can capture without as harsh of artifacts, like blurring.

On the other hand, the display may have already had a high refresh rate, but the computer driving it was sending a slower signal than what the display was capable of showing, so they made some changes on that side of things.  The end result is the same: less blur.

Regardless of the root cause of the change you've noticed, assuming any change was made at all, Time is Money is a game where things like refresh rates probably matter when you have dollar amounts falling at such a rapid rate.  A few hundred dollars being lost in a fraction of a second is something you want to be able to see clearly, so as to avoid any potential S&P issues should that 'blur' be perceived as the show taking advantage of technological shortcomings in order to cheat contestants out of winnings -- or at least, that's the only reason I can think of.  This also makes me wonder if the show has a slow motion camera or uses special software to ensure the game isn't rigged should an issue arise.
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Offline ooboh

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Re: I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2018, 09:23:51 AM »
Based on what you're describing, I would say something changed with the refresh rate of the display, whether it be a new panel was installed or something changed on the computer side.

If a new panel was installed, it could be that the old one only had a refresh rate of, say, 60Hz, which means there are 60 frames of video per second being displayed on the screen. With the money amounts falling at such a rapid rate, 60fps can literally only show 60 individual dollar amounts per second, which may come across as a blur on screen.  Compounding this issue is the fact that the camera is filming at 59.94 fps, interlaced.  I won't go into the technical details of why that's bad, but long story short, you're going to get some blur when filming a screen displaying at 60Hz, as the camera and the display may not be in perfect sync with each other.  However, a higher refresh rate of 240Hz (for instance) would provide much smoother video that cameras can capture without as harsh of artifacts, like blurring.

On the other hand, the display may have already had a high refresh rate, but the computer driving it was sending a slower signal than what the display was capable of showing, so they made some changes on that side of things.  The end result is the same: less blur.

Regardless of the root cause of the change you've noticed, assuming any change was made at all, Time is Money is a game where things like refresh rates probably matter when you have dollar amounts falling at such a rapid rate.  A few hundred dollars being lost in a fraction of a second is something you want to be able to see clearly, so as to avoid any potential S&P issues should that 'blur' be perceived as the show taking advantage of technological shortcomings in order to cheat contestants out of winnings -- or at least, that's the only reason I can think of.  This also makes me wonder if the show has a slow motion camera or uses special software to ensure the game isn't rigged should an issue arise.

A refresh rate! That’s what I was thinking of. I imagine that contestants potentially being cheated out of money is why they made the refresh rate so much slower.

Offline SteveGavazzi

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Re: I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2018, 01:49:22 PM »
This seems plausible.  Season 44 is when they smoothed out the animations in Double Cross, so it would make sense if they fiddled with Time I$ Møney's display at the same time.
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Offline Axl

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Re: I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2018, 03:06:28 PM »
A few hundred dollars being lost in a fraction of a second is something you want to be able to see clearly, so as to avoid any potential S&P issues should that 'blur' be perceived as the show taking advantage of technological shortcomings in order to cheat contestants out of winnings -- or at least, that's the only reason I can think of.  This also makes me wonder if the show has a slow motion camera or uses special software to ensure the game isn't rigged should an issue arise.

I don't think it requires anything that complicated... they just have to be able to show that the system was programmed fairly (in a way that doesn't favor or disadvantage any particular contestant) and working as intended.  I wonder if maybe they did some sort of "time trial" in front of a compliance officer during runthroughs to ensure consistency?  But there's not really much of a way they could "cheat," in the sense of legal liability, because they have not guaranteed to any contestant how quickly the dollar amount will diminish.

Offline gamesurf

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Re: I AGAIN realized … (Time is Money II realization)
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2018, 04:08:48 PM »
This also makes me wonder if the show has a slow motion camera or uses special software to ensure the game isn't rigged should an issue arise.

Having done work with slo-mo video, it takes quite a bit of extra work to set up super-slo cameras at 120 FPS or more--they handle light differently, so they require a lot of special attention to ensure that lighting and color-correction looks normal. Sporting events use these "X-mo"s, but in most situations they're treated as specialty cameras, not main replay cameras. And they don't handle LED screens very well.

Next time you're watching, say, a slo-mo replay in a basketball game, watch the LED screens in the background. They often look like they're flickering on and off. All lights naturally have some flicker, but it becomes much more pronounced under those circumstances.

There are ways to remove the flicker, but the most common ones require post-production techniques, so they're impractical for making a judgement call during a live taping. Not even referees use them when they're trying to figure if a player beat the buzzer--they use regular 29.97 FPS for those. It's probably not worth all the effort to set up extra slo-mo equipment for one game.
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