CNN develops Star Wars technology

[Eframepilot]

Not missile defense - hologram projectors. This is freaky: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=thOxW19vsTg

Can jetpacks and lightsabers be far behind? (Not really.)

[Ryan Thunder]

I'm dubious, to say the least, and I saw that clip on CNN myself...

[Eframepilot]

It seems that it is more of a 3D greenscreen effect, visible only to the TV audience.

[Zadius]

Not missile defense - hologram projectors. This is freaky: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=thOxW19vsTg

Can jetpacks and lightsabers be far behind? (Not really.)

Yeah, all the network were breaking out their best graphics. Both Fox News and MSNBC joked about their green screens. Should make a good joke for Jon Stewart.

[Bounty]

It's not a hologram; the 3D image isn't visible in real life, it's merged directly with the video from the studio so only the audience can see it. It's a neat eye-catcher, and the way they synchronized the cameras to keep the perspective correct is clever, but in the end it's just a really, really, really expensive special effect.

[salm]

I don´t get it. Why do they have to synchronize the cameras, when they´ve got a 3D image produced on the fly?

If they synchronized the cameras in Chicago and New York they wouldn´t need the 35 cameras tracking her.
They´d just need one camera in Chicago and one in NY which move and rotate absolutely the same and some good real time greenscreening software.

If they use the 35 cameras and motion track her they don´t need to synchronize the cameras in Chicago and NY. The only need the camera data and some good real time motion tracking software that edits er onto a marked spot in the clip.

[Ryan Thunder]

It's not a hologram; the 3D image isn't visible in real life, it's merged directly with the video from the studio so only the audience can see it. It's a neat eye-catcher, and the way they synchronized the cameras to keep the perspective correct is clever, but in the end it's just a really, really, really expensive special effect.

I officially despise Wolf Blitzer right now, then. He's the only reason I even considered that it could be anything else. -_-;

[Molyneux]

I don´t get it. Why do they have to synchronize the cameras, when they´ve got a 3D image produced on the fly?

If they synchronized the cameras in Chicago and New York they wouldn´t need the 35 cameras tracking her.
They´d just need one camera in Chicago and one in NY which move and rotate absolutely the same and some good real time greenscreening software.

If they use the 35 cameras and motion track her they don´t need to synchronize the cameras in Chicago and NY. The only need the camera data and some good real time motion tracking software that edits er onto a marked spot in the clip.

That's...a good question. Then again, this trick was probably more expensive, but easier to pull off.

[Bounty]

If they use the 35 cameras and motion track her they don´t need to synchronize the cameras in Chicago and NY. The only need the camera data and some good real time motion tracking software that edits er onto a marked spot in the clip.

Maybe she flubbed, and the trick is that the camera in the studio is tied into the editing suite so they always plug in the correct angle?

[salm]

Maybe they meant that they produced the 3D image and synchronized the camera in NY with the virtual 3D camera which then recorded the 3D image from the correct angle. Then the 3D clip was edited into the studio clip.
That would make sense. It might be more practical to create the 3D data and synchronize a virtual camera with the one in NY than synchronizing a real camera. I think this might be the case because the real camera would take up more space and the studio would have to be larger.
After all the camera has to move around a lot, there are severarl cameras from a whole bunch of angles and so on. This means that the studio in which the woman is recorded would have to be allmost as big as a normal studio. If you simply record her with a "ball" of 35 cameras the space used would be rather small.