Lying with Pixels - Technology Article from 2000

[TruthSeeker1234]

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/200007110...ly00/amato.htm

July/August 2000



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.

By Ivan Amato

[T.A.M.]

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

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker1234

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/200007110...ly00/amato.htm

Please cite the post(s) in which RMackey, "has claimed that video insertion technology did not exist in 2001".

[TruthSeeker1234]

Ryan Mackey says, of my velocity study:

Quote:

The unsupported and exceptional assumption that video editing capabilities of this sophistication [real time insertion] exist.

Quote:

This is fitting, as the argument presented above violates the laws of physics, ignores current technological limits, gainsays witnesses, and rankles common sense.

(bolding added)

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84621

[babazaroni]

If the video insertion technology is not realistic, then 'ignores current technological limits' still applies.

[Pardalis]

What about the amateur videos?

[Lothian]

Ryan, This is outrageous. Take it back and print an apology. How dare you call Truthseeker’s ramblings a study.

[Minadin]

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.

[Unsecured Coins]

Originally Posted by Minadin

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

[Brainache]

From Ace's article:

Quote:

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.

[Minadin]

Originally Posted by Unsecured Coins

Thank god you didn't mention the GLOWPUCK

Oh, that thing was just awful.

[T.A.M.]

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

[Travis]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker1234

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 ) 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.

[twinstead]

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...

[TruthSeeker1234]

Originally Posted by T.A.M.

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.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker1234

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.

[stateofgrace]

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?

[MortFurd]

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.

[Minadin]

The example that the article gives are the sports ones:

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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:

Quote:

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:

Quote:

Wilkinson’s eyes gleam when he describes a (near) future in which virtual insertion technology pushes advertisements to the personalized extreme.

Quote:

So far, the widely witnessed applications of real-time video manipulation have been in benign arenas like sports and entertainment.

Quote:

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.

[peteweaver]

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.

[gumboot]

Putting it bluntly, the article is scare-mongering BS.

They're talking about removing people or objects from video footage in real time, and the thrust of their article is "OMGZWTFBBG j0 can't trust TEH MEDIAZ or TEH SATTELITEZ!!!!!11!!!"

It's a load of [rule8]. Making anything "disappear" in real time requires a real time life-like render of elements of the image which don't exist (you remove a person from a frame, you have to fill in the blanks).

It cannot be done now (not in real time, and not effectively enough to fool anyone), and it certainly couldn't be done in 2000.

This sounds to me like that voice morphing presentation - something of little use or effectiveness, but announcing an interesting possibility for the future - which paranoid idiots have mangled into being some sort of super advanced technology.

-Gumboot

[MortFurd]

Originally Posted by gumboot

Putting it bluntly, the article is scare-mongering BS.

They're talking about removing people or objects from video footage in real time, and the thrust of their article is "OMGZWTFBBG j0 can't trust TEH MEDIAZ or TEH SATTELITEZ!!!!!11!!!"

It's a load of [rule8]. Making anything "disappear" in real time requires a real time life-like render of elements of the image which don't exist (you remove a person from a frame, you have to fill in the blanks).

It cannot be done now (not in real time, and not effectively enough to fool anyone), and it certainly couldn't be done in 2000.

This sounds to me like that voice morphing presentation - something of little use or effectiveness, but announcing an interesting possibility for the future - which paranoid idiots have mangled into being some sort of super advanced technology.

-Gumboot

In the cited Katarina Witt example, they have exactly that. The background doesn't change, so you can locate a spot a few frames away that has the same spot Katarina is in now. You'll have to correct it for the camera motion, but that's worlds easier than creating it whole cloth. Not having seen the video, I would speculate that Ms. Witt is seen skating with the ice and the skating rink walls (the short, half walls around the ice) as a background. That would put her on a static background, with the edge of the wall as a dividing line for the area where the spectators are seen moving.

Not that it matters. Making someone disappear is not blending two tracks with motion.

Nor does it explain the amateur videos and the witnesses.

[negativ]

Well now I'm convinced. In fact, I never noticed before, but if you look carefully at the footage, you can very clearly see the visible nylon strings attached to the plane. The other thing that gives it away is the ripple dissolve and the harp arpeggios in the background transitioning between the plane approaching and the fireball.

[Crungy]

Originally Posted by negativ

Well now I'm convinced. In fact, I never noticed before, but if you look carefully at the footage, you can very clearly see the visible nylon strings attached to the plane. The other thing that gives it away is the ripple dissolve and the harp arpeggios in the background transitioning between the plane approaching and the fireball.

Good catch. The NWO was so impressed with Plan 9 From Outer Space that they brought Ed Wood back from the grave to fake the WTC airplane crashes.............until Ace figured it all out.

[T.A.M.]

You asked me for my opinion on whether RMackey was incorrect or not, and on that point I said I would wait until I had read the article, and until he had replied.

My comment above was in response to someone else making the comment about greenscreening.

TAM

[Alareth]

Originally Posted by Unsecured Coins

Thank god you didn't mention the GLOWPUCK

I LOVE the Glowpuck.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

This question needs to be repeated:

Originally Posted by Pardalis

What about the amateur videos?

Seems it's the elephant in Ace's room...

[Redtail]

Originally Posted by peteweaver

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.

Also, how did the holes get in the buildings? (Don't bother saying planted explosives Ace. If that were the case the entry holes would be going out of the building instead of in.)

[Swing Dangler]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker1234

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/200007110...ly00/amato.htm
By Ivan Amato

I haven't read RMAckey's comment or post but if he did state that technology didn't exist in 2001 he would be incorrect according to the article. It looks as if the technology was in place as early as 1999 and possibly 1998.

Quote:

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.

Interesting quote from the article.


Which begs the question, when Jesus comes back, what channel will he be on?

Quote:

Peteweaver

I'm glad your uncle is alive, but did he have a part number to identify the part that almost hit him?

[Swing Dangler]

Originally Posted by Cl1mh4224rd

This question needs to be repeated:
Seems it's the elephant in Ace's room...

Isn't the video or videos in discussion at this point network television?

[TruthSeeker1234]

Originally Posted by Cl1mh4224rd

This question needs to be repeated:

[What about the amateur videos?]

Seems it's the elephant in Ace's room...

They didn't air live. No one disputes that videos can be fabricated offline. This thread is about the technology to insert pre-existing video into live video. No informed person disputes this either.

[TruthSeeker1234]

Mackey, your bodyguards aren't doing too well here. What about it? Ready to retract?

And how about your claim that my velocity analysis hypothesis does not generate falsifiable predictions? Ready to retract that one too?

[Swing Dangler]

Originally Posted by peteweaver

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.

Unless the tail number is visible or parts identified by number, there is no empirical evidence supporting what they saw was UA175.

[cloudshipsrule]

Quote:

I haven't read RMAckey's comment or post but if he did state that technology didn't exist in 2001 he would be incorrect according to the article.

This is wrong. The technology to insert/remove static items existed. The technology to do what truthboy claims was done did not exist. Just ask Pixar!

[Swing Dangler]

Originally Posted by cloudshipsrule

This is wrong. The technology to insert/remove static items existed. The technology to do what truthboy claims was done did not exist. Just ask Pixar!

Source please?

[twinstead]

Originally Posted by Swing Dangler

Unless the tail number is visible or parts identified by number, there is no empirical evidence supporting what they saw was UA175.

Irrelevant. The claim is that NOTHING hit the building. What exactly it was, and the evidence that suggests it was UA175, is another discussion

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker1234

No one disputes that videos can be fabricated offline.

Sure. But neither have you attempted to demonstrate in any way that those videos recorded and then broadcast later were fakes.

Once again, I keep coming back to this: those of us with a good eye for detail and who are familiar with special effects in general from having read about them and watched large amounts of them can spot a special effect, sometimes easily. I can spot the CGI cars in a ad for the movie Live Free and Die Hard on the first viewing just by the way the cars look and the way they move. These ol' eyeballs of mine are not easily fooled by special effects; I'm sure there are others who are equally, if not more, adept at spotting spotting them.

Not one video I've seen of the events of 9/11 looked faked, not one. Not one showed the characteristic telltale signs of image fakery. And this was from viewing them not as grainy, low resolution YouTube videos, but as broadcast quality videos shown on news broadcasts displayed a good-sized television screen.

[TruthSeeker1234]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

Sure. But neither have you attempted to demonstrate in any way that those videos recorded and then broadcast later were fakes.

Once again, I keep coming back to this: those of us with a good eye for detail and who are familiar with special effects in general from having read about them and watched large amounts of them can spot a special effect, sometimes easily. I can spot the CGI cars in a ad for the movie Live Free and Die Hard on the first viewing just by the way the cars look and the way they move. These ol' eyeballs of mine are not easily fooled by special effects; I'm sure there are others who are equally, if not more, adept at spotting spotting them.

Not one video I've seen of the events of 9/11 looked faked, not one. Not one showed the characteristic telltale signs of image fakery. And this was from viewing them not as grainy, low resolution YouTube videos, but as broadcast quality videos shown on news broadcasts displayed a good-sized television screen.

Tell you what, Corsair. If you and, say, 5 others on this board promise to take a challenge, I'll promise to do the work needed to create it.

I'll present two videos of a plane flying in the air and slipping behind a building. One will be legitimate, and the other will be a composite. You'll know that (at least) one is composited, because the plane will be identical in both videos. The background and buildings will be different.

You and the others will decide which you think is which.

Game?

[Pardalis]

Originally Posted by TruthSeeker1234

Game?

9/11 is not a game. Real people died when the planes crashed.

Stop feeding this lunacy, please.

[Swing Dangler]

Originally Posted by twinstead

Irrelevant. The claim is that NOTHING hit the building. What exactly it was, and the evidence that suggests it was UA175, is another discussion

Much apologies. I was under the impression that this topic was that something hit the building, just not UA175.