How CNN “Holographed” their Correspondents

CNN gets kudos for most original idea during Election 2008 coverage yesterday by “holographing” correspondent Jessica Yellin and pop star Will I Am into the CNN studio to virtually converse with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper. Gizmodo explains how they did it:

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

On the HQ side:

• 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.
• Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the images are actually “projected” onto the floor of the CNN studio so that Wolf can actually talk to the person, you know, in a face to face. 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.

Virtual presence applications for TV media conjure up images of virtual world avatars. The symbolism of TV celebs as avatars is consistent with the idea that in the future everybody will be represented by a variety of avatars or web personas, and that constitutes the social graph.