Technology Review Magazine Details CGI Technology in Media

[CB_Brooklyn]

NOTE: The following article was written before 9/11, but updated afterwards. The update removed the last three paragraphs. The full article is available here.



A few EXCERPTS from the Article follow, although I recommend a full reading of the complete works:




Originally Published in Technology Review Magazine July/August 2000

1/11/2002
Lying With Pixels

Seeing is no longer believing. The image you see on the evening news could well be a fake - a fabrication of fast new video-manipulation technology.




In the clip, Witt gracefully plies the ice for about 20 seconds. Then came what is perhaps one of the most unusual sports replays ever seen. The background was the same, the camera movements were the same. In fact, the image was identical to the original in all ways except for a rather important one: Witt had disappeared, along with all signs of her, such as shadows or plumes of ice flying from her skates. In their place was exactly what you would expect if Witt had never been there to begin with-the ice, the walls of the rink and the crowd.

So what's the big deal, you ask.

What sets the Witt demo apart-way apart-is that the technology used to "virtually delete" the skater can now be applied in real time, live, even as a camera records a scene and instantly broadcasts it to viewers.


So far, real-time video manipulation has been within the grasp only of technologically sophisticated organizations such as TV networks and the military. But developers of the technology say it's becoming simple and cheap enough to spread everywhere. And that has some observers wondering whether real-time video manipulation will erode public confidence in live television images, even when aired by news outlets. "Seeing may no longer be believing," says Norman Winarsky, corporate vice president for information technology at Sarnoff. "You may not know what to trust."


Deleting people or objects from live video, or inserting prerecorded people or objects into live scenes, is only the beginning of the deceptions becoming possible.


Combine the potential erosion of faith in video authenticity with the so-called "CNN effect" and the stage is set for deception to move the world in new ways. Livingston describes the CNN effect as the ability of mass media to go beyond merely reporting what is happening to actually influencing decision-makers as they consider military, international assistance and other national and international issues. "The CNN effect is real," says James Currie, professor of political science at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington. "Every office you go into at the Pentagon has CNN on." And that means, he says, that a government, terrorist or advocacy group could set geopolitical events in motion on the strength of a few hours' worth of credibility achieved by distributing a snippet of well-doctored video.