CNN has a hologram?

[Sandman]

zoYeP09GdRk

I just saw this on engadget.....when did the future get here? That's kind of freaky there.

[jeffbax]

I was waiting for her to tell Wolf Blitzer that he was her only hope.

[LongStepMantis]

They have them, but they're ungodly expensive and still in the early stages.

But what real use does CNN have for one? "Watch our coverage! We have teh holograms!"

I was waiting for her to tell Wolf Blitzer that he was her only hope.

hahaha, win.

[ShivaX]

I was waiting for her to tell Wolf Blitzer that he was her only hope.

I was expecting her to refer to him as "Lord Blitzer".

They have them, but they're ungodly expensive and still in the early stages.

But what real use does CNN have for one? "Watch our coverage! We have teh holograms!"



hahaha, win.

Well the upside was that there weren't 2000+ people trying to get on TV so you could hear what she said. And you could see her ass while she talked? Yeah I don't have much.

[Generation ABXY]

So, that was real? I just assumed they were doing some cheesy gimmick, and I ended up switching to MSNBC when they wouldn't stop stroking themselves over the damn thing.

I mean, okay, you have one. So what - does this change the election or your coverage in any great way?

[ShivaX]

So, that was real? I just assumed they were doing some cheesy gimmick, and I ended up switching to MSNBC when they wouldn't stop stroking themselves over the damn thing.

I mean, okay, you have one. So what - does this change the election or your coverage in any great way?

Thats CNN though. They do all this silly computer/technical stuff. Sometimes it works and other channels actually start to emulate them. I mean the giant screens all over the place annoyed me at first, but after a while I got used to them. All the little wierd crap they do is somewhat experimental. I can't see this going far for reporting. But for porn this technology has a lot of hope.

[JRR006]

That's great. "I'm talking to you as if you were really here!" or whatever - like the early days of the telephone. The future is coming, but we're still at the "prodding it cautiously with a stick" phase.

[Jeffool]

I seriously doubt it was a real hologram. He was probably staring at blank space and she was inserted digitally, standing in front of a green screen somewhere.

[n3rdXcore]

On-topic: When we saw the Will.i.am hologram we all blurted out "Help me Wolf Blitzer, you're my only hope!"

Off-topic: After switching between a few channels over the night, I definitely settled on CNN. They had the most readable ?widgets? at the bottom of the screen to see the current status of various elections across the country. MSNBC (whose team I love) had a decent setup, but it was too difficult to quickly figure out the number of reporting precincts and what exactly was being reported, and FOX news just had this terrible bar at the bottom that was incredibly un-understandable at a glance. I think when you're showing a new race every five seconds, the ability to quickly figure out what's being shown is very important.

So, back on-topic: CNN's relatively advanced technology is pretty awesome.

[ShivaX]

I seriously doubt it was a real hologram. He was probably staring at blank space and she was inserted digitally, standing in front of a green screen somewhere.

Well I'm sure she was inserted digitally, but she was a moving 3D image that acted like she was there. So if the camera had panned off her image would shift with it as though she was actually standing there.

Of course all they did was have a couple cameras that didn't move at all, so the effect was not a whole lot.

[Hotcod]

the BBC where rather restrained with this stuff for once... simple map, good info at the bottom... they did have a man in a virtual 3d studio who could actually use a touch screen to call up districts and the like which was honestly rather neat if silly looking and pointless

[Atepsflame]

I seriously doubt it was a real hologram. He was probably staring at blank space and she was inserted digitally, standing in front of a green screen somewhere.

I couldn't tell for sure, but wasn't everything this evening live? Unless they were editing her that second (which would be equally badass) I think it just might be real. I'm pretty sure I saw them using the same thing later in the broadcast after Obama's speech and they were using it to show the House and Senate seat graphics. I thought I was going crazy at first.

[National Kato]

I seriously doubt it was a real hologram. He was probably staring at blank space and she was inserted digitally, standing in front of a green screen somewhere.

That was my impression. Looked rotoscoped.

[Hotcod]

From what i understand they are stood in a greenscreen room and it's just a case of linking camera movements and easy composting stuff. It only interesting beacuse it's all done on the fly... if it wasn't on the fly then with the right kind of camera rig and after effects i could do the same thing with this laptop

Unless they are using lasers to scan a live 3d image of them and then using the same 'virtual 3d studio' stuff they where using for other things while dumping a texture from doing the above on top of it... or something along those lines... there's something a bit "odd" about them if they are done the easy first way or that could just be down to the fact it's on the fly and can't be as good as if it was done in normal fx way

[Esquilax1138]

As I heard them explain it, they had the person stand in a room with green screen walls and used 35 cameras placed all around the person linked up the the ones at CNN, and when the camera in the CNN studio moved it would rotate the image to make it look like the hologram effect, so while kind of cool it's not really Star Wars quality yet.

Beats the "floating pie chart" they tried one night, that was funny as hell and looked like ass.

[Ancalagon]

I seriously doubt it was a real hologram. He was probably staring at blank space and she was inserted digitally, standing in front of a green screen somewhere.

That would be my guess.

My company makes VR studios like that, we could probably do something like that given time.

My guess is that they have two cameras recording video of her against a bluescreen/greenscreen, so they can key out the background, and those 2 video feeds are inserted into the live feed at the correct distance from the camera to appear correct. Its difficult, but not impossible.

[Jeffool]

I couldn't tell for sure, but wasn't everything this evening live? Unless they were editing her that second (which would be equally badass) I think it just might be real.Actually, it's pretty easy to do live editing, it's effectively the same as the the weather guy standing on a key wall. For instance:My guess is that they have two cameras recording video of her against a bluescreen/greenscreen, so they can key out the background, and those 2 video feeds are inserted into the live feed at the correct distance from the camera to appear correct. Its difficult, but not impossible.All you need is her standing in front of a chroma key wall (of green or blue,) and then Wolf Blitzer facing a chroma key wall as well with a camera behind him. Two walls, two cameras, total. It would only take an hour to fix the shot and size things up right, mark the spots on the ground for'em to stand and camera positions, and boom, lunch.

[Lint of Death]

Thanks to this Jon Stewart asked Stephen Colbert if he was a hologram last night :D

"I may not be here, Jon, but I am scratch and sniff."
Jon cracks up, "I should never have brought that up."