History Main / ExactProgressBar

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:Film]]

*  Any movie or TV show where an illicit financial transaction is carried out. Instead of a real banking website, which takes just as long to process each money transfer, the computer will show a progress bar - as if the computer is actually moving individual banknotes and counting them as it does so...

[[AC:Literature]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Web Comics]]

[[AC:Web Original]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

[[AC:Real Life]]

*  The anti-piracy "You wouldn't steal a car" advert on many DVDs shows a girl downloading a movie. The progress bar is unrealistic, not just because it's completely smooth - but because it only takes about 20 seconds to complete. This may actually be enough to encourage people to use questionable download sites...

* Some progress bars are exact, [[TakeAThirdOption but not to the total file size]], instead basing their percentage on the number of files being copied. This can result in a progress bar that never travels at a constant speed, pausing and speeding up as it goes!

* ProductPlacement in VideoGame/{{Wipeout}} went overboard when the commercial videos introduced in a post-release update played during the loading screen...and the loading bar would ''stop'' near the end as the video finished, whereas the bar had been perfectly accurate beforehand. The ads were since removed because players noticed this detail and [[InternetBackdraft felt anger about it.]] The game has was later updated to support new advertisements.

* Parodied in ''{{The Fairly OddParents}}'' episode "Information Stupor Highway". While Mr. Crocker is uploading a file with a [[TechnologyMarchesOn 1-month-old computer]], the progress bar actually drops to -1%, among other tortures.

* UserFriendly: [[http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99mar/19990318.html The Microsoft Minute]].

* ''DigimonTamers'', which normally takes a tremendous amount of liberties with how computers and networks work, averts this at least once. Progress on a set of calculations is shown in the normal way a computer would display it...with a heavily chunked progress bar, the end segment blinking, and stuck at a certain percent. No estimated time is shown.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/progress_bar_5536.jpg]]

* Used and averted on {{Caprica}}. Several times characters get frustrated because a progress bar sticks at 95% or so before resuming and completing.

* In ''ProgressQuest'', each and every progress bar moves straight from 0% to 100%. However, they're not actually representing progress, they are just fixed video effects.
* Scan progress in the ''MetroidPrime'' games is always smooth, most likely because the scan data [[FakeLongevity doesn't actually take quite that long]] to load. and maybe because its a fixed length animation that will always take ''that long to run''.
* Used hilariously in ''ModernWarfare 2''. On one mission you're tasked with defending a computer system as it downloads files, but the 'time remaining' jumps all over the place as the transfer rate fluctuates. It flits between seven seconds and ''nine hours'' in one extreme example - this is clearly a humorous 'replication' of the Microsoft file transfer progress bar - the worst known example of an actual progress bar.

* Parodied in ''OfficeSpace''. When Peter tries to leave before Lumbergh catches him, it appears that his progress bar will finish in time. Then it restarts... and restarts again... and again...
* In the film ''[[VideoGame/DeadOrAlive DOA: Dead or Alive]]'', the BigBad is uploading the plans for his invention to a bunch of international buyers. Naturally, the progress bar is quickly filling up, despite the fact that these buyers are all, presumably, located in different locations. When Wetherby manages to stop the upload, the bar ''reverses'' and quickly goes back to 0. Just to be more ridiculous, Wetherby calls in the government by going to CIA.GOV on an internet browser and... not doing much else. Apparently, that's enough to call in the cavalry, and the BigBad is immediately warned by a large blinking message on his screen "CIA Notified".

In TV and movies, all computer operations take an exact, known amount of time to perform, and all progress bars move smoothly at a constant rate. This will always be 100% accurate. Generally, in RealLife, it's more complicated. Just try copying a large folder in Windows and see for yourself.

See also BeepingComputers, ExactTimeToFailure, MagicCountdown and LudicrousPrecision.

See also BeepingComputers and MagicCountdown.

* In ''{{Futurama}}'', although the fake nose machine that also translates alien documents doesn't have a progress bar, it is stated that the exact process of translating a document could take anywhere from a few moments to a million years. The only indication of progress is the machine dinging. Two dings means it's done. Not like that, slightly more rapid.

* In ''{{Futurama}}'', although the fake nose machine that also translates alien documents doesn't have a progress bar, it is stated that the exact process of translating a document could take anywhere from a few moments to a million years. The only way to tell when it's done? Two dings, though not like that... no, not like that either.

* Averted in ''Anime/LuckyStar'', where Konata is increasingly annoyed by the realistically fluctuating progress bar on her PC.

* Apparently not even HigherTechSpecies are immune: at one point in ''StargateSG1'', an Asgard progress bar is shown at around 75% for a few minutes, then abruptly increases to 100% in a couple of seconds.

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** It gets more ridiculous in harder difficulties. In "recruit" (Easy) it's pretty close to the real version. In "Veteran" (Expert) it can reach up to several days [[hottip:*:counted in hours]] and work slowly downward from there (just to make fighting off a full army of guys who can kill you in a few shots that much harder).

* When doing something which might take a long time, but where the exact amount of time to complete is unknown, a fake progress bar is often used to show that something is happening. Such progress bars often start out fast at the beginning, but will keep slowing down towards the end.