So part of last night’s election coverage shenanagins was CNN’s “hologram” interviews. Here’s a sample (for now, I’m sure youtube will pull it down). If all the gimmiks this was the most outlandish, and with good reason.
But here’s the catch: it wasn’t a hologram at all. According to Hans Jürgen Kreuzer, a professor of theoretical physics at Dalhousie University and an expert on holography – it was a tomogram. Holograms are projected 3 dimensional images; these were simply composted into the broadcast. There was no image in the studio, Wolf didn’t see anything in front of him, he was talking at nothing and doing a crap job of hiding it – one thing’s for certain: that man can’t act. Sure, they may have use nearly three dozen HD cameras and a bank of computers to make it happen, but considering the result it was a lot of wasted money.
The funny thing is, I figured that out as I was watching live. I’m no profesor of theoretical physics, but I’m pretty good at spotting half-assed BS technology. Furthermore, I could tell you how to do the same thing a lot simpler and with better results. Instead of an assload of cameras and computers creating a real time 3D image of the interviewie and then synching it up to the brodcasting cameras image, just link the camera control on both ends so they pan and zoom identicaly in each studio. Have one bluescreened out and overlay that image onto the live studio brodcast, and you’re already going to get a better image than what they managed. Throw on some filters to give it that authentic hologram feel, and bam. Done.
I feel vindicated in my geekiness, that it was so obvious to me… And I can’t help but laugh at them all lying through their teeth and pretending to be impressed by it.
