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Lying with Pixels - Technology Article from 2000

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In attempting to discredit my UA175 velocity study paper, RMAckey has claimed that video insertion technology did not exist in 2001. I invite you all to read "Lying with Pixels". Then comment upon whether or not RMackey is correct.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000711055157/http:/www.techreview.com/articles/july00/amato.htm

July/August 2000



[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=+2]Lying With Pixels[/SIZE][/FONT]
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.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]By Ivan Amato[/FONT]
 
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I reserve the right to comment until (A) I have read the article, and (B) RMackey has had a chance to do the same, make any clarifications he wishes, and any rebuttal he wishes.

TAM:)
 
If the video insertion technology is not realistic, then 'ignores current technological limits' still applies.
 
You're actually comparing the yellow first down markers at american football games and the green-screen adds we see as the background to other sporting events, which is only the insertion of a simple, static, pre-determined element, to the instantaneous insertion of a high-velocity object moving across a video - and not just from 1 camera, or 5, such as you might see in sports, but in literally dozens of disparate angles, some of which came from moving platforms themselves, such as the helicopter footage, or were filmed by private citizens on handheld camcorders?

I think you'll have better luck with your "the government is illegitimate, we never voted on the constitution, therefore I should not be required to pay taxes" theory.
 
You're actually comparing the yellow first down markers at american football games and the green-screen adds we see as the background to other sporting events, which is only the insertion of a simple, static, pre-determined element, to the instantaneous insertion of a high-velocity object moving across a video - and not just from 1 camera, or 5, such as you might see in sports, but in literally dozens of disparate angles, some of which came from moving platforms themselves, such as the helicopter footage, or were filmed by private citizens on handheld camcorders?

I think you'll have better luck with your "the government is illegitimate, we never voted on the constitution, therefore I should not be required to pay taxes" theory.

Thank god you didn't mention the GLOWPUCK
 
From Ace's article:
For all the heavy breathing, however, some experts remain unconvinced that real-time video manipulation poses a real threat, no matter how good the technology gets. John Pike, an analyst of the intelligence community for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., says the credibility risks are simply too great for governments or serious organizations to get caught attempting to spoof the public. And for the organizations that would be willing to risk it, says Pike, the news folks—knowing just what the technology can do—will become increasingly vigilant.

In 2000 the technology was big and expensive.

Speaking as somone who has worked directing live news bulletins, I would say that everyone in the controlroom, on the studio floor and in the newsroom, tapes department, location cameras, location soundos, link operators, master control and presentation suites of all the networks involved would all be aware of something like this being used.

Not to mention all the witnesses actually on the ground in NYC.

For your scenario to make sense all of these people are keeping quiet about it. Every. Single. One.
 
clearly, they have been greenscreening backgrounds for journalists on news programs since before 2000. I am pretty sure that is not the type of thing Mackey was referring to.

TAM:)
 
In attempting to discredit my UA175 velocity study paper, RMAckey has claimed that video insertion technology did not exist in 2001. I invite you all to read "Lying with Pixels". Then comment upon whether or not RMackey is correct. -snip-
(bolding mine)


What do you mean "attempting to discredit" your paper? Seems to me it was quite utterly and thoroughly debunked. We (meaning smart people other than me :D ) easily debunked it, cracked open some beers, joked about how easy it was and passed around the latest issue of Maxim.


Okay, so the beer and Maxim thing was actually last weekends poker night at my place but the debunking thing was true.
 
One might as well provide a link to the inner workings of the Wright Brother's plane in response to a claim that interstellar flight is impossible...
 
clearly, they have been greenscreening backgrounds for journalists on news programs since before 2000. I am pretty sure that is not the type of thing Mackey was referring to.

TAM:)

Nor is it the type of thing referred to in the article. I thought you said you were going to read it?

Read the article. It is about much more than just putting the first down stripe on the football field.
 
Nor is it the type of thing referred to in the article. I thought you said you were going to read it?

Read the article. It is about much more than just putting the first down stripe on the football field.
The articles talks about:
* Removing someone from the picture
* Displaying different ads in a fixed location
* Overlaying tactical information on a UAV image of Kosovo

It does not deal with inserting a moving image.
 
Ace, this is what you are asking people to believe.

No planes hit the Towers, all the film of them doing so is completely fake, everybody in
New York who may have seen the planes hitting the towers are wrong and have been fooled for the last five years. Nobody at the TV networks noticed they were broadcasting fake films, nobody from anywhere on the planet as noticed, except you.

Why do you think that is Ace?


A planet with over 6 billion and only you noticed, doesn’t that’s seem slightly odd to you?
 
The article is long on speculation, and short on technology.
Even granting that the technoology might have been available:
1. It doesn't explain manipulating over 40 video streams from various sources simultaneously.
2. It doesn't explain how private videos could have been manipulated.
3. It doesn't get you out of explaining the witnesses who saw the plane crash into the building.

The article cites a demo done on a recording of Katarina Witt - said video acknowledged to have been from 1998. This is claimed to have been done in realtime, but there is no indication of the prep time. Also note, this is not the same as blending two live feeds.

The article shows a sample in the form of two photos of what such real time editing could do. Said sample being the replacing of an advertisement logo with a readout of the speed of a thrown ball during a baseball game. This is a level of manipulation widely acknowledged to have been in use at that time.

The Predator example is a different animal all together. There, they were matching stored images against a real time feed to spot changes. Since it was open countryside, changes would (for the most part) be movable objects, like the tanks and other vehicles the Army needed to spot. Not an easy job, but not the same as blending two live feeds.

Keep researching, Ace. One day you'll learn enough to realize that 19 terrorists hijacked 4 airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and crashed one outside of Shanksville.
 
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The example that the article gives are the sports ones:

The best-known examples of real-time video manipulation so far are “virtual insertions” in professional sports broadcasts. Last January 30, for instance, nearly one-sixth of humankind in more than 180 countries repeatedly saw an orange first-down line stretched across the gridiron as they watched the Super Bowl.

PVI and rivals such as New York-based Sportvision were airing virtual insertion products, including simulated billboards on walls behind major league batters

Even the more sophisticated applications are basically plotting pre-determined, static, relatively simple graphics on a moving background:

Instead of altering a football broadcast, the TIGER team manipulated a live video feed from a Predator, an unmanned reconnaissance craft flying some 450 meters above Kosovo battlefields. Rather than superimposing virtual lines or ads into sports settings, the task was to overlay, in real time, “georegistered” images of Kosovo onto the corresponding scenes streaming in live from the Predator’s video camera. The terrain images had been previously captured with aerial photography and digitally stored. The TIGER system, which automatically detected moving objects against the background, could almost instantly feed to the targeting officers the coordinates for any piece of Serbian hardware in the Predator’s view. This was quite a technical feat, since the Predator was moving and its angle of view was constantly changing, yet those views had to be electronically aligned and registered with the stored imagery in less than one-thirtieth of a second

And every other possible use is noted as mere speculation for what may be possible in the future:

Wilkinson’s eyes gleam when he describes a (near) future in which virtual insertion technology pushes advertisements to the personalized extreme.
So far, the widely witnessed applications of real-time video manipulation have been in benign arenas like sports and entertainment.
For all the heavy breathing, however, some experts remain unconvinced that real-time video manipulation poses a real threat, no matter how good the technology gets. John Pike, an analyst of the intelligence community for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., says the credibility risks are simply too great for governments or serious organizations to get caught attempting to spoof the public.
 
How do you explain the eye witnesses who saw UA175 Ace ?

How do you explain the fragments which came off UA175?

My friend's uncle was hit by a piece from it which fell to the ground, that piece almost killed him.
 

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