IT PINOYs might have been amazed with how the two major (warring!) networks brought the recent Philippine Automated National Elections yesterday with the use of “virtual presence” and “hologram” technologies.
in the last days before the election, GMA-7 boasted of it’s expensive set and eventually surprised everyone with it’s hologram effect of reporting (it looked like a scene from star wars!). well, this wasn’t really new as CNN used the same technology in the 2008’s US election and was actually based on a chroma-key technology that’s been taken “to the Nth degree.”
chroma-key is a technique for mixing two images or frames together, in which a color from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it. this technology is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasts, wherein the presenter appears to be standing in front of a large map, but in the studio it is actually a large blue or green background.
ABS-CBN 2 on the other hand used a technology called “virtual presence.” Joel Lamdani, vice president of Orad Hi-Tech Systems Ltd., explained that virtual presence is a feature of an advanced technology called Augmented Reality (AR), which blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell.
unlike GMA-7s hologram, which was taken from an adjacent room, ABS-CBN 2’s virtual presence was taken on a live field report, which was way kewler!!
ABS-CBN 2 also had a gigantic touch screen and a “war room” that looked like those we see in big hollywood movies like “Armageddon” and “Apollo 13.”
like how Comelec succeeded with automating our national elections, these new innovations are definitely a treat for all IT PINOYs as finally we have these technologies on our local tv’s. thought there’s still more cleanup to do (compared with CNN’s hologram) nonetheless, kudos to both stations for bringing their news reports to the next level – world-class!!!
read more [abs-cbnnews.com]
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