Automated Elections, Hologram Effects, Virtual Presence and Augmented Realities: Popularizing News through Futuristic Reporting

SOURCE:
http://englishbp.edublogs.org/2011/02/07/tv-commercial/

Television is such a huge window of illusion.

Everything that can catch people’s attention despite their busy lifestyles, and everything that can entertain them for a while are always present in TV. That is primarily because it is one of the quickest ways for people to escape reality.

Since news reporting are about the realities of life – where most of which bites, broadcasting networks and producers must do something to breathe fresh air into the system and make everything else cool for the audiences’ eyes. In that way, watching the daily news will not be an additional burden for them.

Just May last year, the two biggest television networks of the country launched their latest escalation to an advanced technological level in news reporting. As they covered the first ever poll-automated elections of the Philippines, ABS-CBN and GMA Network wowed the masses with their impressive special effects that made their field reporters appear as if they were face-to-face with the anchors in the studio.

ABS-CBN’s Halalan 2010 coverage made use of the technology called “Virtual Presence,” while GMA’s news team proudly claimed that they were the ones to first use the “Hologram” technology in local television.

Both TV Networks were successful in their reportages and in drawing the people’s attention; but this also triggered another cause for their rivalry because ABS-CBN insinuated that the other broadcasting company had false claims. According to them, GMA used a fake hologram and that what has been done by their technology was a mere chroma key.

Holograms, according to ABS-CBN’s technical department, must be a three-dimensional image that can be seen even if the camera changes its angle. In addition, the Support Head of the Europe-Orad Hi Tec Systems, the digital graphics provider of ABS-CBN, discussed that actual holograms should have been seen not only on the TV screens, but also on the actual set.

The questioned network immediately came up with their defense that their hologram technology was not a fake. Their digital graphics provider – Vizrt Malaysia – also explained that what they have introduced is just another way of enhancing the typical storyline.

After being carped over their undue claims, the anchors and other reporters of GMA began calling their enhanced technology as “hologram effect” and not the actual hologram which has not been fully developed yet.

Virtual Presence vs Hologram Effect

The Orad Hi Tec Systems of ABS-CBN asserted that their virtual presence is different from the hologram effect that the other network made use of. Virtual presence, according to them, is an augmented reality technology that can zoom on to the reporter on the field. Then, from the reporter, it could be panned to the anchor and zoomed out.

GMA, on the other hand, admitted that real holographic communication has not been developed yet. What they do with their hologram effect technology is basically just chroma key. They set up a green cloth on the field where the reporters or interviewees are and the video of the person would be taken while he stood in front of the plain cloth. Afterwards, the footage would be transmitted to the studio and fed into the Vizrt software "to generate the figures that appears on screen."

Furthermore, GMA's technology department added that with their software enabled them to bring about a ‘whole drawing’ that creates an illusion that the person is actually present on the set with the anchors.

The real Hologram was initially discovered in 1947 by the British-Hungarian scientist Dennis Gabor, but its full potential waited for the birth of laser in 1963. Holography is defined as ‘the process of wavefront reconstruction;’ moreover, hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.

According to Mike Talbot’s Holography Universe, in order to make a hologram, “the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of laser beam. Then a second laser beam bounces off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern is captured on film.”

With such complicacy, hologram communications would surely take a longer time to be developed. ABS-CBN was humble and smart enough to call their technology as ‘virtual presence’ instead of the proud claim of the other network that they were finally able to employ ‘hologram’ in their local news programs. 

 

Automated Elections and Augmented Reality

It seemed that the launching of the two reality-augmenting technologies was very timely. The Automated Elections of the Philippines in May 10, 2010 was also a first; thus, it was fitting to take news reporting to the next level as well.

Similarly, the foreign cable network CNN also employed a comparable technology during the US Presidential Elections in 2008. Just like what happened with GMA’s hologram effect, CNN was also criticized for claiming that what they had was a real holographic communication.

The CNN correspondent, Jessica Yellin, proudly asserted that she was the first person to be beamed in a hologram on live TV. Smart viewers, on the other hand, pointed out that it was advanced technology but not yet true holography.

To answer that, CNN explained what was really done. Yellin was standing in a tent outside of the Obama headquarters in Chicago where the CNN crew had set up 35 high-definition cameras in a ring. “She stood in the center of the ring and the cameras picked up her every movement and transmitted the image in 3D to the studio in New York.”

As claimed earlier, this was not true holography because a real one would allow the 3D image of the person outside to be truly present on the studio and not only on the TV screens.

Even though CNN was applauded for trying to give something fresh to the audience, some critics claimed that during that election night, people would not really mind just having the usual or old-fashioned way of reporting from remote locations since it was already a big night. As a matter of fact, it was their much-awaited election night. Furthermore, because having a leading black candidate for Presidency happened to them for the first time, America would have wanted to see the clamor of the people on the field. Nonetheless, what was transmitted to them was just some Star Wars-like image of a CNN correspondent.

In the same way, the attempt of ABS-CBN and GMA to augment reality and escalate the level of local reporting was commendable. However, they should have realized that there was actually no need to popularize their coverage on the elections because it was already something that made noise in itself. It was the first automated poll elections of the country that had already gathered excitement and controversy during the process of preparation.

It would have been better if the seeming technological bragging from the two networks was just put into good use by truly watching over the votes of the people, and by making sure that the automated polling machines did not just give an illusion that the people have really cast their votes.