24 hour TV analysis

The goal of this project is to analyze the visual patterns apparent on different TV channels, rendering them as digital tapestries. Here I look at a comparison of three cable channels, CNN, Turner Classic Movies, and MTV. Each channel has its own visual patterns, color schemes, rates of change, and levels of repetition. Turner Classic Movies (center) unfolds in long, calm, monochromatic patterns, while MTV is colorful, chaotic and messy. CNN is also colorful, but contains segments of repeated patterns.

To create these images, I wrote software that watched TV. The software looks at each moment on TV and calculates the average color of the TV screen for each frame of video. With 30 frames of video per second, this means 1800 frames a minute 2,592,000 frames in a 24 hour period. The software logged this color information as RGB values saved into these images below. Each row of pixels represents a 30 second (900 frame) span of time.