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Chris Higgins
How CNN’s Hologram Interview System Works
by Chris Higgins - November 5, 2008 - 2:17 PM

Last night, CNN debuted its latest ultra-high-tech gizmo: a “hologram” interview system that allows Star Wars-like images of distant people to appear on stage, interacting with the CNN host. Now, it turns out that the “hologram” isn’t actually visible to the host (it’s composited into the image you see at home by a computer), but it’s still pretty neat. Here’s a video of Will.i.am appearing “live via hologram” in the system’s first use:

Okay, so how does this work? Gizmodo tells all. From the Gizmodo article:

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

Help us, Will.i.am, you’re our only hope!

Update: as commenters noted, actually correspondent Jessica Yellin was the first to appear in “hologram” form. Here’s that video.

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Comments (12)

  1. Talk to me when they can do this via teleportation. Until then, I’m not really impressed.

    posted by Amy on 11-5-2008 at 2:34 pm

  2. Everyone keeps pointing to CNN’s holograms and saying it is like Star Wars. I kept changing the channels last night, and Fox News reminded me of an Imperial chamber. Seriously, it was kept so dark and quiet in there as opposed to the other networks. I guess Karl Rove was supposed to be the Emperor?

    Am I the only one who noticed this? Did Fox design the set like a wake for its target demographic?

    posted by Witty Nickname on 11-5-2008 at 2:37 pm

  3. @Witty Nickname, I’ve heard people compare the rejoicing after Obama’s win to the Ewok party at the end of Return of the Jedi. I guess it was just a Star Wars themed night!

    posted by Chris Higgins on 11-5-2008 at 2:40 pm

  4. I hated the hologram interviews. I thought they were silly. I switched over to msnbc where the coverage was a little more subdued.

    posted by plumcookies on 11-5-2008 at 2:58 pm

  5. Just a note on the system’s use. Jessica Yellin was actually “beamed” in and chatted with Wolf Blitzer a few hours before Will.i.am’s appearance. So Jessica’s appearance was actually the system’s first use… unless you count the 3D capitol building effect they brought up a couple times with Campbell Brown and the other guy whose name I can not think of at the moment.

    posted by Matt on 11-5-2008 at 2:59 pm

  6. this is so unnecesary, hahahha.

    posted by Laura on 11-5-2008 at 3:36 pm

  7. I was bouncing around the channels last night, so I forget which one this happened on… I loved it when one reporter did the majority of her report shown standing in front of a green-screen scrim, and only at the end of the interview were they finally able to pop in the classical columns and archway behind her. Technology doesn’t rule all, not yet…

    posted by Karl on 11-5-2008 at 4:33 pm

  8. If this was all just a big sham, couldn’t CNN use it for something more entertaining, like a holographic water-skiing squirrel? It has about as much to do with election night as Will.i.am.

    posted by Simon on 11-5-2008 at 4:34 pm

  9. What bothered me was how CNN was trying to pretend that it was a genuine holographic projection in the studio, when it was really just a distorted superimposed image. It was a gimmick, and less effective than just showing her standing in her actual environment.

    posted by gibson8or on 11-5-2008 at 11:11 pm

  10. So am I the only one who thinks it’s kinda cool? I mean, yes, completely unnecessary, but I enjoyed it.

    posted by Jenna on 11-6-2008 at 1:22 am

  11. Until it’s a real hologram that the host can see, I’m not impressed, and a little let down.

    posted by Leah on 11-6-2008 at 11:41 am

  12. yeah, I think calling it a hologram is false unless the ‘hologram’ can be seen inside the studio. Right now its just a fancy green screen.

    posted by Anthony on 11-6-2008 at 3:41 pm

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