CNN got a lot of publicity out of its “hologram” reporter introduced on election night in November, as well as some derisory comments.
It seemed a little ridiculous to me that the network should want to “beam” its reporter at the Obama celebrations in Chicago into its studio, when usually the whole point of putting someone on location is to have them surrounded by the colour and sound of the events they are supposed to be reporting.
Jessica Yellin was instead surrounded by a green screen and 35 high-definition cameras to produce the holographic effect.
At the TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco today, Steve Byrd, executive vice president of Stats Inc, the company behind the technology, described how the gimmick worked and explained it was not even a hologram.
Presenter Wolf Blitzer was looking at thin air when he interviewed the reporter: the effect of a rounded 3D person was not generated in the studio itself but by combining the image with the studio set in the gallery.
Nevertheless, Mr Byrd said the reporter’s appearance, and that of the rapper Will.i.am later, had generated a lot of interest.
Stats has been talking to the producers of award shows – just imagine the compere saying “Unfortunately, Sean Penn can’t be with us to accept the award, but we do have his hologram” – and Mr Byrd pointed out the technology could eliminate those split screens where six different people in remote studios are shown as talking heads on CNBC, putting them all behind a desk instead.
The technology, developed by an Israeli acquisition, was really designed for sports programming and is known as SportVu.
In soccer, the cameras act as sensors to produce heat maps of areas of the field that a player covers, statistics are produced for touches and time on the ball and 3D scenes can be rendered from the perspective of any player on the pitch. The equipment is being installed at all Major League Soccer venues in the US for the coming season.
Other innovations were also demonstrated at the TV of Tomorrow show. Macrovision showed off an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) on steroids. It allowed different members of families to create their own customised viewing guide and details on shows included the ability to have email and text reminders sent and many levels of detail on synopses and characters.
The EPG is designed for internet-connected televisions, meaning users can not only delve into details of the programmes they are interested in, but also call up previous episodes and have them streamed through the interface.
Hand Eye Technologies demonstrated how viewers could interact with the TV through software recognition capabilities installed in their camera phones. Taking a picture of a dress on Sex and the City brought up a web page on the phone allowing the user to buy it. Pictures taken of other parts of the episode brought up pages of information on the cast and an opportunity to buy the DVD.
Jonathan Kessler, Hand Eye’s chief executive, also showed how snapping a Goldfrapp music video presented the opportunity to download a ringtone on the phone and how viewers of an NFL game could use their phones as cursors to “chalk” tactics on the screen.
I thought only John Madden could do that, but, in these days of holograms and where Kessler says “We use the cell phone to be the eyes of the viewer,” all kinds of visual trickery seem possible.
