How Long is the avg. B5 episode

Silly question:

TV shows, at least in the U.S., have to leave time for commercials to be shown.

While watching the first-run episodes of Stargate-SG1 on Showtime, I notice they run 45 minutes or so.

So how long were the B5 and Crusade episodes? How religious are the powers that be about running time? Obviously, the netowrks sell the commercial time, so does an extra 25 seconds screw them up?

Does SciFi shave any episodes to add more commercials?



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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

A B5 episode - as shown in Europe, PAL format, without commercials - is just over 42 minutes long. You can easily fit four episodes on a 180-minute tape and have room to spare.

I believe that it runs a little longer in the US since they need to be speeded up a little to be shown in PAL format.

I don't notice it with the average shows - but I've noticed this with music (I remember watching an episode of The Sopranos and noticed that a song - which was also on the soundtrack and which I had listened to, quite a few times - went just a little faster on TV! Then I noticed it with another song. It was strange.)

Therefore it's always strange for me to think of B5 as having "1-hour episodes" - we don't have as many commercials here (and the first time I saw it, it was on a channel that didn't have any commercials) and it certainly lasts a lot less!

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"It's animal magnetism. What can I say?"
- G'Kar, A Tragedy of Telepaths

I live in the U.S. and I've taped some B5 episodes, cutting out the commercials. From teaser to end of ending credits, it's just shy of 44 minutes. Might as well say 45 minutes.

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So 25% or more of the alloted time for the show is devoted to commercials. Oh well. Since SciFi keeps showing the same commercials, it seems even longer!

Thanks.

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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

I am buying the tapes from Columbia House and have found that the whole one hour show, including credits runs fifty minutes.
Although oddly enough, a couple have gone as far as fifty five minutes.

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"No boom to-day, boom tomorrow.
There is always a boom tomorrow."

IIRC, most episodes lasted for a precise amount of time. It was eithe 44:XX, 46:XX, or 48:XX

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The Vorlons shall triumph!

I taped them all without commercials on the first TNT showing, and they were all in the range of 43:30 - 43:45, except the fifth season, which was shorter, by about 45 sec. I think. I compared my TNT tapes with my PTEN tapes, and the timings were the same. Back then, I heard, and read that the "European" showings were 3-4 min. longer, but have never been able to confirm this, and Joe De M., and others dispute it, but they do have less commercials over there, or none at all.
Kochia! Have you compared the tapes you purchased, checking your counter to confirm actual timings, to tapes made from broadcast? It would seem impossible to believe that the commercial versions are 6 - 11 min. longer than the broadcast versions. That would be amazing, and I'm sure we would all like to see what we've been missing.

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Palindrome of the month: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.

I would like to know about these tapes, and the "Missing" scenes, too. I can easily fit four B5 eps - minus commercials onto a 180 minute tape as someone else said. The pre-recorded tapes available here are on average about 84 minutes long - two eps per tape.

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It's interesting to get such different answers. Maybe the commercial tapes are "director's cuts?"

I would have thought there would be some contractual obligations for the episodes to be produced at some predetermined range of length...



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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

I sure wish someone with commercial tapes would check the actual running time of an ep to clear this up. I hate to think that there are several minutes of each ep that I have never seen!

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Palindrome of the month: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.

Well, the commercial PAL tapes are 84 minutes for two episodes, so that makes 42 minutes per episode. And I don't think they've left anything out, compared to the episodes shown on TV.

So I still maintain that in PAL, the average episode is around 42 minutes.

And unless the American/NTSC version is in slow motion or has tons of extra stuff (apart from commercials....) added, I doubt they can be much over 44-45 minutes? It would indeed be good to hear someone with NTSC commercial tapes confirming that...

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"It's animal magnetism. What can I say?"
- G'Kar, A Tragedy of Telepaths

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kribu:
So I still maintain that in PAL, the average episode is around 42 minutes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>PAL and NTSC have different frame rates, so the episode is slightly speed up to compensate when converting from the latter to the former.



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You are not entitled to your own opinion. You are only entitled to your own informed opinion.
-- Harlan Ellison qouting Gustave Flaubert

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by drakh:
PAL and NTSC have different frame rates, so the episode is slightly speed up to compensate when converting from the latter to the former.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, I believe I said something to that extent in my first post in this thread. But I doubt the speeding up could explain a more than a few minutes' difference for a less-than-an-hour show.

It certainly can't be 42 minutes in PAL and 55 minutes, without commercials, in NTSC (as stated in a post above) unless there's some extra stuff in NTSC.

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"It's animal magnetism. What can I say?"
- G'Kar, A Tragedy of Telepaths

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kribu:
It certainly can't be 42 minutes in PAL and 55 minutes, without commercials, in NTSC (as stated in a post above) unless there's some extra stuff in NTSC.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>There's no way a US TV show would have 55 minutes dry time. 45 is the standard timeslot, and everything has to fit in there. And I seriously doubt there is some special edition tapes out there that nobody else have heard off.



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You are not entitled to your own opinion. You are only entitled to your own informed opinion.
-- Harlan Ellison qouting Gustave Flaubert

It does seem impossible that commercial tapes could have 55 minutes of program, but the only was to settle this with certainty is if someone who has a commercial tape checks the actual program time on their vcr. So doesn't anyone have one to check? I don't! Please, any one who does, check and let us know. Zero your time counter at the opening, and check the time at the end of the credits, PLEASE!

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Palindrome of the month: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.