Diminished Reality

[Skybird]

Diminished Reality - German software engineers now were successful in manipulating live videos so that during live transmission of the moving pictures objects could be erased from the video.

I imagine the potential for abuse, and manipulation of information, news, and "live-coverage". The possibilities for live censorship without the audience realising it, are endless. Currently, so say Wolfgang Broll and Jan Herling of the university of Ilmenau who pionerred and acchieved the breakthrough, manipulations like this could be proven in according videos and life-streams. But in two years, they estimate, the technology will be so perfect that the manipulation can no longer been shown.

Philip K. Dick, anyone...?

http://bundes.blog.de/2010/10/19/mad...tzeit-9678697/

We should make a mental note that from now on, such manipulation is possible. In other words: where in the past years we have learned not to trust the media showing photography and video records, we now need to always keep in mind that we even cannot trust live coverage anymore.

What this technology is able to do in the hands of current corrupt political establishments and lobby politics, is a nightmare, imo.

German news article

[August]

Anyone who ever watched the movie "The Sting" knows that "live" broadcasts could be manipulated long before this...

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by August

Anyone who ever watched the movie "The Sting" knows that "live" broadcasts could be manipulated long before this...

... or has watched "Speed".

[Skybird]

Penguin,

you can see a light shadow at the edited part of the video, almost all time. It still is not perfect, and the team admit it themselves, however, it is a breakthrough to acchieve such manipulation not after seconds and minutes of editing, but in almost real time. The two guys say themselves that it needs another 2 years to be perfected. And then I doubt you see there any shadow anymore where a deleted object has been.

The news is not that videos get manipulated. And the news is not green boxes or blue boxes, and copying a video stream into a neutral background. The news is that any existing video pictures can be edited live, in almost real time, within the same split of a second they get recorded and broadcasted.

You already edit the visual reality the very same split of a second you film and transmit it - no noticable time delay.

[the_tyrant]

Guys i have a question
In the book Angels and Demons, it was said that almost no tv station does real "live" broadcast anymore. The book says that its all just a reporter in front of a screen in the studio with fake wind and rain. Is it true?

[Sailor Steve]

Here in Salt Lake they have reporters all over the place all the time. One local station even has them stand in front of the station itself, just so they will be outside. Kind of hard to fake when they're right downtown where everyone can see them.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Guys i have a question
In the book Angels and Demons, it was said that almost no tv station does real "live" broadcast anymore. The book says that its all just a reporter in front of a screen in the studio with fake wind and rain. Is it true?

Moderation of news, and other studio productions, are being done in blue box or green box studios indeed. The backgrounds can be animated or still, can be real video or computer graphics.

The most modern and versatile TV studio in Europe is said to be that of the second public TV channel in Germany, ZDF (at least that's what was said when it was introduced a year ago or so). Below, you see the "green hell", as the moderators call it (because they need to orientate their mimic and gestures so that they meet the superimposed images on the final TV screen, but the moderators only see the green background in the studio), and the standard studio theme that the TV audience is seeing instead. It can be replaced with anything else.





Camera-teams out there on the street and filming on location, still are needed to get the film material, though. However, computer graphics are being used for illustration purposes as well.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Guys i have a question
In the book Angels and Demons, it was said that almost no tv station does real "live" broadcast anymore. The book says that its all just a reporter in front of a screen in the studio with fake wind and rain. Is it true?

You can try asking Bob Woodruff whether or not his reports from Iraq were live.

[the_tyrant]

The Chinese TV stations have been doing this for years
live is not live, its 5 minutes behind, so they can cut stuff out if they want

[Rockstar]

A great job so far of dividing a population into two extreme groups with great rhetoric (logos, pathos & ethos). Now to seal the coffin with 'official' video feeds a new selling point to gather audiences in addition to being fair and balanced! Is it live or is it memorex? Never mind facts, no matter who shows it, we'll be busy arguing amongst ourselves again this time trying to prove a videos authenticity.

Meanwhile a select few will enjoy their jet set lifestyle and meetings in tropical settings.

The cynic

[Oberon]

Reminds me of when the Czech weather panorama got hacked and this was played:



But yeah, expect this to be abused in all kinds of merry ways before long.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

The Chinese TV stations have been doing this for years
live is not live, its 5 minutes behind, so they can cut stuff out if they want

"5 Minutes behind", means it is delayed, edited, then broadcasted. It is not "live".

And No, August, this has not been done "since years" - not in real time.

This now means live in almost real time. In a German essay on the two experts and their breakthrough, the calculation time to process the video images and broadcast them is mentioned to be 40 milliseconds. Granted, that is also a delayed broadcast, but it is not delayed by minutes or seconds, but just 40 ms.

Als Brolls Mitarbeiter Jan Herling diese Software kürzlich bei einem internationalen Symposium in Seoul vorstellte, war das Publikum nach seinen Worten erstaunt und zugleich skeptisch. „Es gibt weltweit nur eine Hand voll Experten für diese Technik, aber selbst für sie war es vollkommen neu und bis dato nicht vorstellbar“, sagt Diplom-Informatiker Herling.

When Broll's assistant Jan Herling demonstrated the software short time ago at a symposium in Seoul, the audience was amazed and sceptical. "Worldwide, there is only a small handful of experts for this technology, but even for them this was completely new and so far unimaginable", says Diplom-Informatiker Herling.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

"5 Minutes behind", means it is delayed, edited, then broadcasted. It is not "live".

And No, August, this has not been done "since years" - not in real time.

This now means live in almost real time. In a German essay on the two experts and their breakthrough, the calculation time to process the video images and broadcast them is mentioned to be 40 milliseconds. Granted, that is also a delayed broadcast, but it is not delayed by minutes or seconds, but just 40 ms.

My point was how does an audience ever know for sure that a broadcast is in real time? I mean aside from the broadcasters claims of "live coverage", unless we happen to see a clock or something similar in the background we have no real ability to tell whether any footage "is live or is it Memorex".

[Skybird]

I have digital cable TV. Before, I had regular (analogue) cable which did not need a set-top-box.

When I now compare my clocks (radio-controlled and thus: precise) with the TV clock before the 20:00 news, for example, I realise that digital cable TV transmits the signals with a delay of around 2 seconds. It lags behind. All programs I compare with analogue cable, lag behind by 2 seconds. With analogue cable and in the past: radiowave-transmitted TV, there was no such delay. Until today I can demonstrate that difference between digital and analogue cable.

I would not be able to notice it with a delay of not 2 seconds but just 40 ms.

The two experts say that they estimate that in 2 years, graphical artifacts that c urrently are if not visible at least can be shown by graphical analyxsis to be existent, will be gone - means they will be so minor then that manipulated images no longer can be shown by analysis to have been manipulated at all. Together with that manipulation being done in almost real time, the possibility for deforming visual reality, chnaged "live" evidence of any kind, and censorship, are almost perfect, and total.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I have digital cable TV. Before, I had regular (analogue) cable which did not need a set-top-box.

When I now compare my clocks (radio-controlled and thus: precise) with the TV clock before the 20:00 news, for example, I realise that digital cable TV transmits the signals with a delay of around 2 seconds. It lags behind. All programs I compare with analogue cable, lag behind by 2 seconds. With analogue cable and in the past: radiowave-transmitted TV, there was no such delay. Until today I can demonstrate that difference between digital and analogue cable.

I would not be able to notice it with a delay of not 2 seconds but just 40 ms.

The time differences between analogue & digi cable are mainly the result of various de- and encoding procecces of the didital stream. However usually also the stream which will be transmitted to you analogue is usually digital before and gets converted before by your cable provider.

But you raised an interesting question for me: At which time the teletext gets embedded into the different transmission signals and if the embedded time signal gets an slightly "advantage" so that it reaches the consumer at the right time. Have to check it out with the people who work in the control room of the channel.

PS: The camera zoom at the beginning of the ZDF news is one of the worst which I have ever seen. The travel speed of the camera, the desk and the background differ totally! Maybe they changed it meanwhile, but in the first weeks it looked awful! Bah!