CNN’s Holograms Not Really Holograms

There have been lots of jokes about the holograms CNN used in their election night coverage, as viewers anxiously waited to see Princess Leia beg the bearded Obi-Wan Blitzer for help. CBC News reports that these weren’t true holograms:

The network, which made use of three-dimensional imaging technology produced by Norway-based Vizrt and Israel-based SportVu, billed the interview as a first for television. CNN also aired a second “hologram” interview between anchor Anderson Cooper and rapper Will.I.Am, who was also in Chicago.

The CNN anchors were not really speaking to three-dimensional projected images, but rather empty space, Kreuzer said. The images were simply added to what viewers saw on their screens at home, in much the same way computer-generated special effects are added to movies.

Kreuzer said the images were tomograms, which are images that are captured from all sides, reconstructed by computers, then displayed on screen.

Holograms, on the other hand, are projected into space.

2 Comments

  1. 1
    Brett says:

    Well, that’s a bummer. I thought we had finally figured out a way to holographic telecommunications. Damn, those bastards at CNN lied to us.

  2. 2
    Jerry says:

    I saw this and was not impressed. Actually, if they were Tomograms then they didn’t use them very well, because they only showed them from two different angles, and they didn’t look very good. The blue screen halo was ugly and their cameras weren’t synced to the same aspect ratio, making the projected image appear distorted.
    A better way would be to have a remote camera slaved to the studio camera; as the studio camera moved, the remote camera would duplicate its movements. You could pan around the scene and it would look natural. No need to take many images from many cameras and “reconstruct” them with computers. That’s just silly talk.
    CNN: call me. We’ll get it right next time.

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