No, this isn’t a theoretical scientific question, sorry.
This is about movies shown on TV. On TBS (and I think other channels) they show an announcement screen before movies. It has a green gradient backgorund and tells what changes have been made to the origional film.
A common thing it will say is “Edited for Content” and/or “Time Compressed.” This is how I understand this: they cut out “bad stuff”, and possibly other stuff, so the length of the movie is shorter than it origionally was. Maybe they even play the credits double speed.
Now, sometimes it will say “Time Expanded”. What does this mean? Does it mean that the amount of time to finish the movie will be higher, because there are comercials added? If that is true, it would seem that “Time Compressed” movies have a minute of content cut out for every minute of commercials plus more. That can’t possibly be right.
So, what does “Time Expanded” mean when it is displayed before a movie on TV?
[sup]I have a feeling this is a stupid question with an obvious explanation I’m missing[/sup]
A lot of movies are actually shorter than the time that a network wants to allot them. So, they edit in some of the scenes that were cut out for the theatrical release.
I remember it was really cool when they did that for Star Trek II. We got to see the scene with Scotty mourning his nephew, who was killed in Khan’s attack.
Yeah, like when USA shows FRIDAY, they add scenes that are not in the VHS version I own. Just always thought that was weird.
Thanks guys, I should have known that.
this reminds me of a related picayune question I’ve always had.
At the beginning of videos it says:
“this movie has been changed from it’s original format. It has been reduced to fit your screen.” Or something like that.
That wording has always smacked of some kind of legalistic deception to me. Why not just say it’s been reduced to fit my screen? Has it been changed in other ways?
Also, this started happening - what - 5? 10? years ago?
Was there some kind of law passed that studios had to add that or what?
I always wondered how they knew the size of my screen. 
I don’t have a citation for it, but if I recall correctly, the terminology of this phrase was the result of contract negotiations between writers, directors, and studios. The studio is obliged to tell you what you are seeing is most emphatically not the original vision of the director, since the compression / expansion and use of “pan and scan” technologies produce a final product that is sometimes noticeably different from the original release.