Video-on-video technology amps up election coverage
While waiting for the historical results on election night, CNN entertained its viewers with “holograms,” or so this news station told its audience.
CNN used this technology to show reporter Jessica Yellin “in studio” talking to Wolf Blitzer, rapper will.i.am, “in studio” talking to Anderson Cooper and the Capitol Building all “via hologram,” CNN said.
“(They were) not actually holograms, but just the insertion of one video image on top of another in real time with computer technology,” said Richard Chapman, a professor in computer science and software engineering. “Actual holograms are 3-D projections using lasers that you can view from all angles. That is, they are not viewed on a TV or computer screen, but projected into the air.”
Yellin said she was in Chicago being filmed by 35 high-definition cameras surrounding her in a ring, inside a special tent. These images were then processed and synchronized by 20 computers and sent to the computers in Blitzer’s studio in New York.
“The two ‘halves’ of the image are filmed separately and then synchronized in time, and the one overlaid on the other,” Chapman said. “It helps if one of the ‘halves’ is filmed with a plain ‘green screen’ background, but (it’s) no longer essential.”
CNN worked with overseas companies Vizrt and SportVu, and a California-based consulting firm to develop the technology, according to the Associated Press.
“You could clearly tell that it was a digital image of her,” said Eric Lioy, a junior in building sciences. “But it was still pretty cool to see the image not projected on a screen, but projected into what appeared to be thin air.”
Chapman said the technique has been around for a long time.
“Even older examples include the films ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ and ‘Space Jam’ where animated and real characters act together,” Chapman said.
The images are only seen by the viewers and can only come through on computer and television screens.
“I didn’t see it live on CNN, but I heard people talking about it, so I looked it up on YouTube,” said Chris Luly, a junior in building sciences.
“Before even really focusing on the ‘hologrammed’ person, the glowing edges around them gave away that it was a digital image.”
Although fuzzy, the images still gave a buzz to the CNN viewers and the blogging world, criticizing the use of the word “hologram.”
“You can see how far it has already advanced in films such as the ‘Lord of the Rings’ series, where real actors, completely computer-generated characters and motion-capture-based characters, who are based on a human actor but have computer generated bodies (such as Gollum), act together in the same scene,” Chapman said. “The mind boggles at the possibilities for creating fantastical worlds.”
