OT - Re: Windows standalone puzzle

[Tim Selander]

Oh, golly. I work in broadcast (though not news.) ALL, and I mean 
ALL, news, documentaries, etc., etc. 'erase' some of the truth 
via editing, in what they decided to shoot and in what they never 
bothered to film in the first place. Taking out flashes in a news 
conference is the very LEAST of the 'erasing of truth' that goes 
on. It is all biased in one way or another. It can't be helped -- 
we're humans. Even if we try to be absolutely unbiased, we are 
riddled with culture, thought patterns, values that we cannot 
keep out of our communication. I'm afraid you're not getting 
'truth' via broadcasts -- your getting the broadcasters' (or 
advertisers?) interpretation of the truth.

OK, off the soapbox....

My guess is that it is strictly a cost issue. Much cheaper just 
to verbally warn people who have issues with flashing lights. Do 
glitzy stuff like lines and graphics on a football field can 
attract millions of football fans, nicely packaged up for the 
advertisers. Worth the cost. Edit out the flashes, and gain a 
handful of viewers who suffer from certain disease? Doesn't pay....

Also, taking out a random flash here and there is relatively easy 
and would not noticeably affect the picture. However, say the 
president grimaces -- every camera/flash in the place goes off, 
giving you mostly flashes for a second or two. Taking those out 
would do very noticeable 'damage' to the picture. Most viewers 
will not notice a single dropped frame. But when you start 
dropping 30 to 50% of the frames, they'll notice!

Tim Selander
Tokyo, Japan

On 8/22/13 9:03 AM, Roger Eller wrote:
> If they can edit what we "see" in a journalist presentation of the facts,
> have they not in a way, erased some of the truth?
>
> ~Roger
> On Aug 21, 2013 7:41 PM, "Alex Tweedly" <alex at tweedly.net> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>>
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