OT - Re: Windows standalone puzzle

[Alex Tweedly]

On 20/08/2013 16:52, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> This is why I love this community:
>
> ...
> Collectively, there's nothing we can't solve. :)
>
> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin
I've often thought that if I had *any* technical question, I could ask 
this list and there would be someone who knew (or at least had a very 
good idea of) the answer. So here goes ... :-)

Every night when I watch the news on TV, they say something like "Here's 
(John Smith) at the news conference held this afternoon. Warning - this 
report contains some flash photography".

Now I know why they give this warning - that repeated rapid flashing 
from still cameras can cause problems for nystagmus, epilepsy and 
various other disease sufferers.

What I don't know is why they don't just digitally edit out the 
flashing. Surely this must be (relatively) easy Digital Video Processing 
- you detect a non-trivial part (10% threshold??) of the frame which 
increases in light level for a single frame (assuming anything between 
20 and 60 fps) and then returns to its original levels.

OK - I know almost nothing about DVP, but if they can overlay a 
touchdown line on a football field, or change a Coke to Pepsi can, or 
all those other marvels, surely it can't be that hard to eliminate 95% 
of the flashing - and wouldn't that would be enough to reduce it below 
the trigger point for most vulnerable viewers. It needn't even be done 
in real time - it could be left as a warning for any live showing, and 
then automatically removed by program and checked by a human editor 
before subsequent showings.

-- Alex.