Comments on: CNN's human 'hologram' on election night

News network beamed one of its correspondents from Chicago to New York City in a "hologram" during its election night coverage.

[osantosg]

Nice effects! but I agree it would be better to use this on an interview with an individual rather than a reporter on site

[kenobone]

We have witnessed the next leap in TV technology!
From Cathode Ray Tubes to Plasma to LCD Flat screens to Holograms in our living rooms!

I very much enjoyed the tech!

[celticbrewer]

The hologram was on the set and transmitted to our 2D televisions. So what's the point? Maybe when we actually get a real hologram in our living room- actual 3D on the viewer's side, then we can call it a leap in TV technology.

[haub123]

celticbrewer, the point of this was to show a 3d image sent from one place to another. and they have 3d TV shows and movies and such, like Journey to the Center of the Earth. so we already have this leap you wish for. The point was to show the 3d image of a person, liek she was standing there, from 1000 miles away.

[rxbracho]

I must agree with haub123's point. While this technique (call it hologram, call it whatever) is still very expensive, it could be used to provide, for instance, live "town meetings," or much better "webinars." And when the information can be recorded (after all 35 HD cameras plus other info is a lot of data to be stored somewhere, for now), one can imagine going to a movie theater (think IMAX) where 3D actors would roam around you. I know it's like theater, but with special effects, etc., that would go to a movie, it's true 3D without the stupid glasses. I think it has promise.

[ghosford]

rxbracho, this technique, unlike an actual hologram, could not be used for any of the purposes you describe, unless, perhaps, all of the participants wore VR headsets (even then it would display the participants with the headset obscuring the face). It will not, for example, display a remote moderator at the front of a town meeting.

Although CNN called it a "hologram," and modeled it after Star Wars, it will mislead many people. The only way this technique can be used is via a television set or other display medium in which two pictures can be overlaid. Wolf Blitzer could not actually see Jessica Yellin, except on a monitor.

[aj37viggen]

Isn't a hologram a 3-D image formed by light interference patterns?

If so, why is everybody calling this CNN thing a hologram? It's just a VR image formed from multiple video shots.

[dascha1]

I agree, you see how this 'technique' has been used since the Animated-Live Mixture days, or for example, the Dick Van **** Disney days... Though for an aging Digital version using true 3D environment, I think there's still a few copies of the following product (circa 1994)

COMEDIANS: The People Behind the Laughter (search around, Amazon.com)

which deploys live characters that actually walk around in a 3D Comedy Bar doing Stand-up and other tricks.

LAUGHING MATTERS
http://www.time.com/time/international/1995/951127/multimedia.html

[ptkdude--2008]

I thought CNN's "hologram" was stupid. When you put a reporter on location, we need to SEE that they are on location, not a crappy video image of them inserted into another location.

[missatl]

oh and by the way they used the hologram because it was very noisy where Will was. If you caught the interview that the youngest King daughter gave on MSNBC you will see what they were trying to avoid. We could barely hear her.

[chrisfrary]

Exactly its like the crap they had, putting people in imaginary rooms in front of green screens. Just show the traditional behind the desk, in front of the screen usual.

[RideMan]

I guess the next logical step is to figure out how to do it with fewer cameras, or at least with a simplified rig, so that the "hologram" (kudos to aj37viggen for the more accurate description, but it doesn't have that ring to it...) can include a bit of the reporter's surroundings. In other words, to bring a VR version of the actual location into the studio, to kind of split the difference between just having the reporter on set, and doing the interview 'the old fashioned way'.

[workiscool]

I can't say it was stupid...if you didn't see enough coverage of the crowds, you weren't watching. That's what they showed most of the night.

I give them credit for cool factor alone. For a night like last night, with the noise of the crowds it was a very unique way to get an isolated interview. Is it useful for day-to-day, no. But they'll probably use it anyway. Still very cool.

[undahpresha]

Its hilarious when you hand a few old people some new fangled technology......hologram Wolf? C'mon.
Those touch screens are laughable as well. They serve no purpose in moving the story forward.

[StuXU]

Yeah! They should go back to just radio broadcasting of events. Or no live coverage at all, just newspapers. Get a life. I commend them for using new techonology and progressing. Holograms weren't really necessary, but a cool new interview tool.

[missatl]

The world is changing and technology is improving everyday. I approve of CNN using Holograms on air. It shows how far we have come. Do you realize with the use of holograms what we can do? This is only the beginning. If this scares or annoys you just wait 15, 20 years from now. I commend CNN. Keep up the good work.

[ifij775]

It looks pretty good except there is a visible halo effect.

[Magallanes]

yes, this looks like a a picture photoshoped by a novice = cheap and crappy.

[mikeburek]

I think that halo was on purpose. Prob had to pay extra to develop it.

[biznatch11]

This was NOT A HOLOGRAM! It's blatant false 'advertising' from CNN to claim it is, and even worse for a technology site such as cnet, who should know better, to perpetuate this claim. It is nothing like the examples given (Telstra, etc.) which used actual holograms (just look at the picture). For something that supposedly took 3 weeks to set up and I am sure cost quite a bit, it was incredibly unimpressive once you realized what was actually happening.

[roland827]

Yep, this isn't a hologram!

It's just Wolf Blitzer talking to a blue screen overlayed with Jessica's video. A real hologram would entail a projection system beamed to a position near Wolf and he would've been able to move around her like she was physically standing in front of him. In order to achieve something like this, they'd need some sort of visible overhead or underfloor projection system.

From the edges of Jessica's image, you'd see some blue screens remnants, and that basically is what the computer used to extrapolate her image to separate from the background and is then overlayed to Wolf's broadcast camera.

So in essence, Wolf was just talking to a empty area of the room and was not Jessica at all... he is basically interacting based from his TV monitors.

[industrialD]

First, Wolf was not talking to a Green (or blue) screen.
He was standing in the middle of a live studio. Generated in Chicago Jessica's 3-d image model was processed (and alpha channel generated) Then using telemetry data from mult NY studio cameras, the 3-D image model of Jessica and her key signal where sent via IP to NY and then using an Ultimatte, matted into the program feed. And as different cameras where selected, different perspectives of the 3_D where automatically inserted into the feed.

All this was done in REAL TIME, not hours spent in Post Production.

[kiwi-in-dc]

This was not a hologram by any reasonable definition of it.

What it was was some fairly clever online synchronization of multiple cameras overlaying in real-time onto a CG model of the presenter which was synced to the pan/tilt/zoom of the main studio cameras.

She was shot against a green screen in the "tent" and chroma-keyed into the shot in the studio. Wolf Blitzer could not see her in the studio, she appeared on a monitor as they always do with live green screen work.

A shame they have to try and make something that is really quite a neat trick combining motion tracking, multiple HD viewpoints and live co-ordination of cameras to the CG view into "a hologram"...

[roland827]

"What it was was some fairly clever online synchronization of multiple cameras overlaying in real-time onto a CG model of the presenter which was synced to the pan/tilt/zoom of the main studio cameras."

I wouldn't call this clever, as technique is already been done a million times by weather reporters. The Weather report is usually done with the weatherman stands in front of a blue screen and interacts with the weathermap or a projection of it. In this case, instead of a weathermap, Wolf and the studio was projected to Jessica who is standing in front of a blue screen. And the overlayed images are then transmitted to CNN...

They could've probably done the reverse here, as instead of the studio overlayed in Jessica's blue screen, it seemed that they overlayed Jessica and on top of the studio feed and used a computer to extrapolate her image delimited by the blue edges on her edges, which is then overlayed to Wolf's live feed.

[RideMan]

In a normal chroma-key, the key camera generates a color image and a mask based on the blue, green, or other ugly color of key background. Key backgrounds are typically ugly colors to reduce the chances that the foreground elements will accidentally get caught up in the mask. So that's your foreground image. The background image, then, is the weather map or studio or whatever else might be used for the key. Parts of the background image that correspond with the key mask are replaced by the foreground image. Simple.

What sets this apart from your ordinary garden-variety nightly-news weather report is that the images from the foreground image (in this case the remote reporter) is captured and converted to a 3D computer model. Using inputs from the studio cameras (pan, tilt, zoom) and a design model of the studio, the computer calculates the exact position, scale, and orientation of the foreground image, and generates a fully rendered foreground image. This, by means of a matching mask, is keyed over the studio camera image in exactly the same way as the weatherman gets keyed over his weather map.

The difference here is that if the studio camera moves, or if the studio view changes to a different camera, the computer generates a corrected foreground image. Another critical difference here is that because the rendering system "knows" what the empty studio looks like, it can also analyze the background image and identify anything that shouldn't be there (such as the program host) and cut that out of the key mask, allowing the foreground image to blend in *behind* elements in the background.

A better comparison with what CNN did would be to call this an extension of the "first&ten" system that puts the electronic lines on the football field. That system works in a similar fashion, adding a 3D rendering to a live camera shot. The difference is that for CNN, the 3D rendering was a reporter instead of an orange line.

[byronkim]

Tacky... Frankly, this seems like another example of the problem with many mainstream media outlets these days. I think that relying so heavily on gadgets, toys and effects is very telling of what these news organization are focussed on...viewership. It's yet another ploy that gets added to the list of things that works against credibility. The line between reality TV/entertainment and news is getting a little too blurred for my comfort. I've heard the argument that the news doesn't need to be boring...I guess I can kind of see 'some' logic there. I don't think that anyone wants to be bored.
But as Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message" and honestly it doesn't seem like there is anyone at CNN who is thinking about the impact of how varying modes of representing information effects the information itself...or maybe they completely understand and just don't care.

[ghosford]

You all are missing the point. Tacky or not, CNN and/or Vizrt (see post from trziv below) actually wanted to make it look like the "hologram" of Princess Leia in Star Wars. They don't care about the actual technology used; they added the blue "halo" and flicker intentionally, so the person "beamed in" would look like the Princess Leia "hologram" in Star Wars.

Also incorrect is the use of "beamed in" or ?transporter room,? referencing a ?technology? in Star Trek, where the subject's physical molecules were transferred and re-assembled at the destination site. Besides, the "hologram" of Princess Leia in Star Wars could not be a real hologram because the holographic image is projected by a single source (from R2D2?s single projection lens).

So don't blame CNN for calling it a hologram. They call it a hologram because it was modeled after incorrectly named visual effects in Star Wars. But it was already in the public consciousness, and just like the argument that the 21st Century began in 2001 instead of 2000, debate as much as you want, but you won?t convince the general public.

As far as cnet - well, it's just reporting what CNN called it. And 99% of the public will call it a hologram, because they don't know or care what a hologram is, it looks like the "hologram" in Star Wars, which is exactly what CNN was aiming for. We can debate whether it is tacky separately.

[ysuol]

Hehe, no it is not a hologram, it's like the dude said above, same as weather reports do it... no projection just the image is put over the feed that we see (so not in the studio just monitors).
It was even crappy for that, she was floating right and left on that supposedly 'projector' thingie, so it was done like crap.

I thought it was real funny, though, the idea...

(this technology itself is not news since a long while)

[seymark2]

Nice job... well this is a big lie.. we know CNN is the best channel in the globe which i personally agreed to.. but prince Charles in the first man to use this stuff. not CNN.. this has been used since last year... there is a link on You tube just type in this: Hologram of Prince Charles - Musion Holographic Projection


and you watch it and see how it is... i tried to search for this vid on you tube its not yet posted..

[vsn2]

Except this was not a hologram ... there was no physical image in the studio for Wolf Blitzer to gaze upon with his own eyes ...

[seymark2]

I hope this can be used to call the Dead, for real think about it.. just don't glance through.. it will be successful to be used to call the dead for an interview... i did the research and i think it will work 1001%

[Michichael]

Would be cooler if you know... it was 3d hologram, not a bluescreen overlay on a feed.

[blueshore]

A bit impressive, but still a FX. Perhaps if a water vapor screen and some projectors were used, then a nice pseudo hologram could be done for in-studio.

In any case, it is good to see some ideas turning into realities, even if there are no fully developed.