CNN Hologram
Last night’s election in the US was exciting from a historical and from a technical standpoint. Historic of course because Sen. Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President. the exciting technical event was when CNN introduced the first hologram on TV.
Borrowing a little from Star Wars and a little from Star Trek, reporter Jessica Yellin was beamed into CNN’s New York studios from Chicago.
44 HD Cameras were used to create this hologram.
On the subject’s side:
• 35 HD cameras pointed at the subject in a ring
• Different cameras shoot at different angles (like the matrix), to transmit the entire body image
• The cameras are hooked up to the cameras in home base in NY, synchronizing the angles so perspective is right
• The system is set up in trailers outside Obama and McCain HQ
• Not only is it mechanical tracking via camera communication, there’s infrared as well
• Correspondents see a 37-inch plasma where the return feed of the combined images are fed back to them. Useful for a misplaced hair or an unseemly boogar
• Twenty “computers” are crunching this data in order to make it usable
In the NYC studios:
Only used on two out of 40-something total camera feeds that CNN has. The delay is either minimal, or we’ve gotten used to satellite delay that we don’t even notice now. An array of computers takes the crunched info feed from the subject’s side in order to mesh it with the video from Wolf’s side. It doesn’t appear that the images are actually “projected” onto the floor of the CNN studio so that Wolf can actually talk to the person. So it’s not quite Star Wars just yet. Only after computers merge the video feeds together do you get a coherent hologram + person scenario.
But it’s a start!
