Real-time (media)

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Real time is a term used to describe a motion picture, television or radio program, or computer game wherein the events depicted take place entirely within the span of time that lasts from the beginning of the depiction to the end, and at the same rate.

For example, everything that is shown within a linear thirty-minute, real-time television episode will occur within thirty minutes of "real life." In a real-time episode there will be no cuts to action occurring several minutes, hours, or years later or earlier. An event that is shown fifteen minutes after the start of the episode is thus depicted as occurring fifteen minutes after the events that are depicted at the start.

In a real-time computer game or simulation, events in the game occur at the same rate as the events which are being depicted. For instance, in a real-time combat game, in one hour of play the game depicts one hour of combat. Real-time strategy is one genre of real-time games.

The most prominent current example of real time occurs within the television series 24, where 24 one-hour episodes combine to form the real-time events occurring to the protagonist over the course of a day.