Thread by @AlexBlechman

Interesting technical detail about interactive TV shows that will affect story structure:

Netflix downloads a few minutes of shows in advance to prevent lag. Interactive TV needs to create this buffer for each potential choice, multiplying the total amount of video downloaded.

If a choice has 2 options, you need to download twice as much video. 3 options, 3x as much video. etc. This makes it difficult to have a choice with many options. You also need to space out choices long enough so all the videos for the next choice have time to download.

I expect streaming services will develop tech to reduce and eventually remove this problem. Maybe we'll download whole shows. But until then, interactive TV will have the limitations of A) Few options per choice B) Delay between choices. Fortunately, there are some workarounds

Writers can add scenes to delay choice consequence. Choices that don’t take effect until later in the episode can have more options, because they only need to download 1 video clip regardless of how many options the choice has.

For example, a character might ask “Where do you want to drive?” (4 options). Then ask “Do you want to take the highway or the back roads?” (2 options). The scene with 2 options will play first, buying time so that the 4 option scene only has to download 1 branch.

But delay scenes won’t be filler. If you have a really funny joke, important exposition, character moment, or amazing special effect, it might make sense to make it mandatory viewing so nobody misses it-

-but then immediately follow it with the effect of an earlier choice that had many options, so the viewer feels they’re still in command despite being on rails for a brief moment.

By weaving together delays and consequences, interactive TV writers will be able to create vast and varied interactive worlds to explore while minimizing the amount of video the viewer downloads.