Sunday, November 09, 2008
CNN's holograms not really holograms
cbc: "CNN made waves on Tuesday night by incorporating three-dimensional holograms into its coverage of the U.S. election. The only problem was, they weren't really holograms."
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19 comments:
I guess it's really cool technology, but put of me says, What's the point? You can add almost anything in post production with enough processing power.
Technicalities, I can understand why CNN would call this a hologram, it exists in the same realm as holograms and in the public eye, calling something a hologram makes it more familiar allowing people to recognize it as something new dealing with 3d imaging. Though incorrect this is still really cool. I am curious to see what other types of effects could be created using this technology.
I can agree with Teddy in that CNN would call this effect a Hologram. CNN wants to impress people with their advanced technology that no other network has. Well technically they do since their not really holograms, but actually a computer effect. CNN would not call it anything else to get ratings.
But its also really innovative that they thought to bring this effect into the news world.
The touchscreen they use is so much cooler in capabilities. I agree with everyone in that it's "shiny" and who cares. It's just another layer added in to the stream.
James hit it on the head. Shiny new toy... Still post pro though which isn't anything new. CNN did get busted with their terminology and they know it because they wouldn't comment.
I think a comment made on the website really makes a good point" I don't even understand why this is a news story. Does anyone really care?"
Out side of production people, why does the general public care about this?
How is this much better than splitting the screen and showing the two different commentators that way? I mean yeah, the technology is cool and CNN called it the wrong thing, but this isn't a big deal. We're in a recession, can't CNN spend the money on something besides 35 cameras to show one person?
It's an interesting exercise but I don't feel like it added anything to the interviews. It looked more comical than anything else. I think what made this interesting was that the coverage was so instantaneous, and it wasn't an hour late. The integration with post production technology was really closer to a live feed. I think the effort to make this crappy effect happen was more interesting than the effect itself.
This is hilarious. I love that CNN wouldn't comment. And I just have this picture in my head of Wolf Blitzer pressing that little button on R2D2's head.
Who cares though how many dimensions you're reporting in? You could be giving the news in 9 dimensions, but it doesn't change your journalism skills.
Lately it seems like CNN is way more into their technology than the news, which I'm pretty sure was its original purpose. I watched some election coverage on CNN, and everyone appeared to be more interested in playing with their cool toys than relaying election updates.
CNN is getting more and more rediculous as time goes on. It's quite unneccesary. Sure, a hologram would be cool to use in a newscast; however, that's not what this really is. It's just what they do in Star Wars. I say, go back the CNN's flashy touch-screen thing or just split the screen like they used to.
Why do people spend so much time questioning CNN as to their "hologram capabilities."
What a great waste of 35 high definition cameras and 20 computers? Seriously? CNN's job = broadcast the news. Holograms? Last time I checked CNN isnt a sci-fi show why not leave that up to Spielberg and Lucas? Focus on what you do well and do it don't try for flashy effects that are half assed. Some people may disagree but from that still this looks pretty stupid. I agree with James that the touch screen they used was far cooler.
When watching election coverage, I didn't give a damn what any members of the Black Eyed Peas felt, and I certainly didn't care enough to spend a boatload of money to show a hologram of them. Whether they want to call it a hologram or not, it still was an extremely poor use of money. It didn't change their coverage at all. People are going to watch CNN because they have some really good newscasters. This technology doesn't make any difference. In comparison, John King's "virtual map" that broke down delegates and stuff was very effective in showing election results. This was a good use of money, not the holograms.
i heard about these "holograms" that cnn had on the night of the election. after looking at the clips from the broadcast i would have to say that it is pretty cool. Even though they may not be actual holograms i think the idea they are playing around with and the way they employed it was very interesting. It definitely caught a lot of viewers eyes, so i guess they won in they end.
The image was still clearly 2d and poor quality, but the processing to integrate the location of the person with the camera shots was impressive. At supercomputing events, this is the kind of stuff they demo - applying complicated math to a very large dataset. This is cool, but belongs at a technical expo, not in front of the other 99.9% of viewers.
The technology and idea is incredibly interesting, but the way it was used was nothing that couldn't have been done with some creative editing. Seems like a waste of money that could have been used elsewhere.
chances are, it's neither.
the AfterEffects CS3 program does all sorts of virtual studio scenes with '3D' objects that you can 'interact' with.
i'm sure final cut studio has something similar
This is kind of weird--yeah, they used the wrong word, but I'm sure the general public knew what they meant. And yeah, they were actually talking to blank space, but the tv viewer doesn't see that. It's the same deal as the weather maps--there's no map there, they just add it in. It's tv, people, you can't believe everything you see.
It's sad that instead of discussing politics in an intelligent matter we focus on giant touch screens and holograms. Wolf Blitzer knows what he's talking about when it comes to the news - but it makes me angry to think that so much of the viewership is based on 'cool things.'
While this is really cool and it is probably one of the first times it has been used in this application. The technology has been used on weather reports for a while and also in movies (with CGI, LOTR anyone?). I don't really understand why this is such a big deal other than CNN mixed up their terminology and got caught in the act.
All of that said, It is really cool that were are close to having this technology. There are many applications, not just in communications, but also in theater, concerts, the visual arts, and many other performance and presentational forms.
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