Post by mtmaloney on Apr 12, 2010 10:11:09 GMT -5
I know that this idea has been discussed on many sites, including this one, and I've seen a few similar projects done, but I don't know if anyone's actually gone ahead and done it before.
Something that I and some of my friends have really wanted to do is watch LOST in chronological order. As in, from the earliest days of the show (as of right now starting in 1867), through to the end of 2007 where we are right now, and everything in between, in order.
That would mean taking all the flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways, and of course, the present day storyline, and cutting them all up and reorganizing them into a timeline.
I first heard about this idea last year during Season 5, when one of my blogger friends mentioned the idea, the show opens with a flash of white light, and a group of the survivors appear. The wheel is turned, they disappear, and now we see Richard, and the Black Rock, and Jacob and the Man in Black. Then we're in the 1950s, and we see the survivors once again, and we first meet the Others. Then we go to see 1956 and see the same John Locke that just turned the wheel, born. And so on.
I thought it was a fascinating idea, and would be really cool to watch. So a few months ago, I started working on the groundwork for this project. I ripped all of my LOST DVDs to my computer, and began splicing all of the episodes, organizing each season as I went along. Once I had finally made it through all the episodes, I began creating a master timeline, integrating each seasons clips together.
Well, I'm happy to say that things have progressed nicely. As of today I have everything from Season 3, 4 and 5 all organized in chronological order. Seasons 1 and 2 should be completed this week. Season 6 has not yet been fully integrated for obvious reasons, but I anticipate everything being finished shortly after the series finale.
It's been a pretty big project, and I've undoubtedly spent far too much time one it. But I've had a lot of fun with it and look forward to sharing it with everyone. Which brings up a question I have for everyone.
I'm trying to figure out the best way to share this with everyone. With about 90 hours of show, even if I were to encode each episode (I do plan on doing these in episode format, about 45 minutes per) down to 350MB or so, you'd still be looking at about 30GB of data. That's a lot to try and share with everyone. I've thought of a few ideas, but I'm looking for feedback on those ideas and any other ideas people might have that I'm not thinking of.
-Torrents. Not a great option since it's such a large chunk of data, with my internet connection it would take forever to upload and get out to the masses.
-Video sharing (ie. Youtube). Probably the easiest of any of the methods. There are many video sharing sites out there, and not all are as copyright-heavy as Youtube. Easy to upload and can be accessed by everyone. Only downside is you're probably going to deal with a hit in video quality because of it.
-File uploading site (ie. Rapidshare). I'm not real well-versed in how these sites work, but might be an option depending on what kind of limitations there are. Would be easy to upload and distribute to others. Only downside is it's not streaming like video sharing would be.
-DVDs/Physical Media. There's a huge upside to this, as pretty everyone can watch DVDs, and it has the added benefit of being able to watch on your TV if you don't have your PC hooked up to it. Ideally this would be an available option to all. The downside is that it would be a massive undertaking on my part to even provide one set of DVDs to people, let alone many. Plus, there would be a cost involved with buying the blank DVDs and shopping out packages. I love the idea in theory, I'm just not sure how well it plays out in reality. A possible, less convenient alternative to this would be a flash drive, or portable hard drive. Higher cost, but much easier to deal with.
I think those are the main 4 options I can think of. If anyone can think of anything else, please, I'm all ears. I really want LOST fans to be able to see this project, as I think it's a very unique and special way to be able to see the show.
Something that I and some of my friends have really wanted to do is watch LOST in chronological order. As in, from the earliest days of the show (as of right now starting in 1867), through to the end of 2007 where we are right now, and everything in between, in order.
That would mean taking all the flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways, and of course, the present day storyline, and cutting them all up and reorganizing them into a timeline.
I first heard about this idea last year during Season 5, when one of my blogger friends mentioned the idea, the show opens with a flash of white light, and a group of the survivors appear. The wheel is turned, they disappear, and now we see Richard, and the Black Rock, and Jacob and the Man in Black. Then we're in the 1950s, and we see the survivors once again, and we first meet the Others. Then we go to see 1956 and see the same John Locke that just turned the wheel, born. And so on.
I thought it was a fascinating idea, and would be really cool to watch. So a few months ago, I started working on the groundwork for this project. I ripped all of my LOST DVDs to my computer, and began splicing all of the episodes, organizing each season as I went along. Once I had finally made it through all the episodes, I began creating a master timeline, integrating each seasons clips together.
Well, I'm happy to say that things have progressed nicely. As of today I have everything from Season 3, 4 and 5 all organized in chronological order. Seasons 1 and 2 should be completed this week. Season 6 has not yet been fully integrated for obvious reasons, but I anticipate everything being finished shortly after the series finale.
It's been a pretty big project, and I've undoubtedly spent far too much time one it. But I've had a lot of fun with it and look forward to sharing it with everyone. Which brings up a question I have for everyone.
I'm trying to figure out the best way to share this with everyone. With about 90 hours of show, even if I were to encode each episode (I do plan on doing these in episode format, about 45 minutes per) down to 350MB or so, you'd still be looking at about 30GB of data. That's a lot to try and share with everyone. I've thought of a few ideas, but I'm looking for feedback on those ideas and any other ideas people might have that I'm not thinking of.
-Torrents. Not a great option since it's such a large chunk of data, with my internet connection it would take forever to upload and get out to the masses.
-Video sharing (ie. Youtube). Probably the easiest of any of the methods. There are many video sharing sites out there, and not all are as copyright-heavy as Youtube. Easy to upload and can be accessed by everyone. Only downside is you're probably going to deal with a hit in video quality because of it.
-File uploading site (ie. Rapidshare). I'm not real well-versed in how these sites work, but might be an option depending on what kind of limitations there are. Would be easy to upload and distribute to others. Only downside is it's not streaming like video sharing would be.
-DVDs/Physical Media. There's a huge upside to this, as pretty everyone can watch DVDs, and it has the added benefit of being able to watch on your TV if you don't have your PC hooked up to it. Ideally this would be an available option to all. The downside is that it would be a massive undertaking on my part to even provide one set of DVDs to people, let alone many. Plus, there would be a cost involved with buying the blank DVDs and shopping out packages. I love the idea in theory, I'm just not sure how well it plays out in reality. A possible, less convenient alternative to this would be a flash drive, or portable hard drive. Higher cost, but much easier to deal with.
I think those are the main 4 options I can think of. If anyone can think of anything else, please, I'm all ears. I really want LOST fans to be able to see this project, as I think it's a very unique and special way to be able to see the show.
