Crazy idea, or crazy good idea?

[Cal_kashi]

So, i haven't been on gotwoot much at all, but recently discovered the joys of IRC for a cs class, and thought this up. There's a number of people who DL the new episodes of bleach and naruto when they first come out, what if we organized a synchronous time to all watch the newest episodes silmultaneously then either all be on IRC or in a thread saying whatevers gotta be said interactively. It would add a new element to watching these horendous Naruto fillers, and could potentially reinstill awesomeness into that magic period of time that thursday night used to be. You know, a reason to look forward to the naruto releases again.
What do you all think?

[DB_Hunter]

Hmm I did a similar thing with a friend of mine. We both used started watching at exactly the same moment, in sync, and we had Skype on in the background. It was pretty cool, and were doing this during the whole Lee Vs Kimimaro thing, and also I think when Sasuke fought Naruto after that. The downside of it was that when something good happened someone would speak and it would kind of take away the immersion you had in the episode. I don't know why we stopped in the end, I think one of us had exams after that or something.

Its up to you guys really, but thats my experience of watching anime in sync with a friend. Oh, and be prepared to keep hitting the pause/play button in the beginning to get it exactly right. It was a bit bothersome between two people, can't imagine what it would be like with a load of people.

[Ryllharu]

I imagine over IRC there would be some more allowance for slow reaction time, but if everyone wasn't off by more than a second or two it would work fairly well. As DB_Hunter said, its hard to sync two people perfectly, and especially so when you have different hardware configurations, use different players, etc.

It's a nice idea though. It would probably make the fillers marginally less horrible, and probably add some fun to it with the chat. It's like going to a old B-movie. The crowd goes to it expecting to yell things out loud, and let the rest of the crowd add to the experience.

I'd say give it a shot (not that I watch either of those shows anymore). If it doesn't work out, no real loss either.

The logistics of it would have to be worked out though. Download times and speeds taken into consideration, etc. You'd more likely end up watching the eps a day or two after it was released rather than right away, but you get the idea.

[Assertn]

then lies the problem of waiting till everyone had a copy at the same time.

[Cal_kashi]

i think if we used irc or a thred here it wouldn't matter mch if it was up to 10-20 seconds off, and we could certainly be better than that if everyone is already logged onto irc and we all start when someone says to, given that we will all have the same DB copies

[Winged Dancer]

I think it's a fairly neat idea. Watching stuff in-synch can be pretty amusing, and it doesn't have to be perfect synch... and besides, if we do it with the Naruto fillers it's not as if we'll ruin or spoil anything.

I've done it a few times with some friends and it works pretty well via MSN, never tried with a forum though.

[xDarkMaster]

It is a good idea, however, as previously mentioned it will be extremely hard to get everyone together and with the episode at the same time. So, at best there may be 10 people doing it.

On the other hand if too many people are part of it, it will be difficult to follow the anime and the conversation at the same time. Sorry to sound negative! I think it's a good idea, it will just be extremely hard to carry out and make it work.

[masamuneehs]

this is an excellent idea that suffers from the problem of being terrificly difficult to implement.

Setting up a time to watch isn't hard, but since people here are across international time zones you can imagine someone won't be able to make it... However picking a time that works for most people would still make for good discussion.

The biggest problem: Some people stop what they're doing to write comments, like pause the show. Obviously this (along with problems mentioned above) leads to people being on different times in the episode.

Still, I'd think this would work nicely and would really like to see it started up in IRC.

[DB_Hunter]

Perhaps a way to mitigate the sync issue would be to pause at the halfway point, write your comments so far and then restart. This way you will get a decent chunk of the episode seen by everyone and the sync issue won't get too bad. If you have everyone stopping at arbritrary points then things could get messy. Then when the ep finishes everyone can talk again.

You don't need everyone to do this at once. If people have difficulty attending one sitting, have different 'viewings', just like at the cinema. This could be done like 2 or 3 times a week for people who live in different time zones or those who just can't make it.

You could try to implement this for a start, and if things go well you could tweak the different variables i.e. showing times, number of showings, number of people per showing, break points per episode etc.

[mage]

My friend and I watched all of Naruto in sync over Ventrilo. Watching it with someone else definitely makes it more entertaining.

[Tommy_Salami]

i agree with mage doing ti over some thing like team speak would be nice because it is no typing and just talking.

[Ryllharu]

The problem with that, as addressed in some of the earlier posts, is with voice chat, everyone needs to be synchronized far more than with simple typed chat. With voice, one or two seconds would be the maximum because someone can instantaneously comment instead of type. The time it takes to type would cover far more significant delays, probably in upwards to five or even seven seconds. By that time, everyone will have seen whatever the user is commenting on.

The simpliest approach is to just set up an IRC channel and have everyone run a windowed player that forcibly sits on top (MPC does that function quite adequately). I find most people who are used to subs have no problems dividing their attention one more direction. I've used AIM while watching something on more than one occasion.

[ChaosK]

I've done it before and its definetly more entertaining than watching it alone. I think using a team speak is out of the question.