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Back on TV: Max Headroom
infofreako writes: "
Everyone's favorite 80's construct, Max Headroom, has returned
thanks to the people at TechTV.
According to their website,
they will be rebroadcasting all 14
episodes starting this Friday! This series was doing ethics
themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain
scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record
on the old VCR. "
Max Headroom wasn't animated in the sense you think, it was rotoscoped, that is, painted over real images, like the A-Ha video, remember?
What's tech TV? Is it a real TV station? I've never heard of it...
TechTV is owned by Vulcan Inc., the Bellevue, Washington-based investment organization of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.
Hmmm... is TechTV objective? Do they also have Apple and Open Source programming? I really don't know. Otherwise this scares me.
Carl
Vote Libertarian
Actually, it was just plain old makeup against a bluescreen for the backdrop.
You can find those clips on TvParty.com.
It's amazing how much of the series made in '85 ended up becoming so true later.
Thanks! here you go: Pirate TV signal on WTTW
I mean, if the entire Titanic can realistically be rendered, why not be able to render a person in real time with realistic voice synth and physics?
Are you serious? If you are, you obviously have absolutely no grasp of how 3D modeling works.
Rendering something like the Titanic is easy. (Not easy in the sense that anyone with a copy of 3D Studio MAX can do it, but easy in the sense that it's just a ship.)
When you create something in 3D like the Titanic, it's based on specifications that do not change. Lighting is constant, shapes stay the same, and moving parts are minimum.
Compare that to attempting to duplicate a person, detailed, in 3D. People are tremendously harder to do than objects, because people automatically scrutinize other people. That's why when you look at a movie like Final Fantasy, you can say "Wow, they sure are realistic, but there's just *something* not right."
With a person, you have to deal with mouth movement (a very difficult thing to model in 3D), eye movement, muscle expansion and contraction based on movement, bending limbs and joints, breating, and a whole host of other factors. Then when you get into voice synthesis (which is still not perfect, but AT&T is making leaps and bounds.), and physics modelling on things such as cloth and water... It's all very hard.
So between rendering something like a ship moving through the water, or creating a realistic person in 3D, the ship is a lot easier to do. It may be painstaking in detail to create, but it's still just basic shapes.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
UHF will be out on DVD June 4, 2002
Look here...
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
Anyone know is email address?
Oh, wait.. Maybe he's still answering the webmaster address.. That appears to be (google) the email address he's been using on the site (according to a quick search).
>wow, techtv is the best, i wish i got it where i live
:-(]. 3,760 MHz Horizontal, MPEG2/DVB, Symbol rate: 26000 FEC:7/8.
Where do you live?
In the western hemisphere, try Satcom C4, transponder 12, or the various DSS providers.
In asia, try AsiaSat3S [listed as encrypted
Elsewhere, I don't know -- sorry. Since TechTV seems to be (generally) a FTA channel, you might get lucky if you check your local DVB listings...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Even ST:TNG used a model for the Enterprise. The model was mounted, upside down, in a green room. A motion controlled camera was then used to move around the ship to create movement. Then stary backgrounds were matted onto the green field. That is why 95% of Enterprise shots are of the bottom of the ship.
In some of the fly-bys, notably the opening credits, you can see people moving inside the Briefing Room. This was done with a green window where the briefing room window was, then stock footage of people walking around was shrunk and matted into the scene.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
There is no "better than connecting it to Video-In..."
Laserdiscs are, believe it or not, analog. (The video is, anyway, there were a few incarnations of digital audio.) Worse than that, they're composite video, so you need to decide whether the comb filter in your capture device is better than the one in your LD player. (Decide this by testing with a good monitor. Dot crawl sucks.)
I have a pretty sizeable collection of Laserdiscs, and keep meaning to start converting these to DVDR. I have this bizarre hangup that I need to move the AC3 audio, and I haven't found any way to capture AC3 with a S/PDIF card. (Pointers appreciated!)
The reality is that I should ignore that, since anything I might have with AC3/DTS is recent enough that it's likely to be rereleased anyway.
Back to your question, spend as much money as you can bear on the capture device, (I have a Director's Cut, but would get a DA-MAX if I were doing this for money.) think about a proc-amp (might not be necessary) and go for it.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Ah, but you've got to be careful with the original UK pilot show when it comes to what was/wasn't computer graphics.
There were computer graphics in there, but there was also a lot of work by Rod Lord, who also did the "computer graphics" in the book sequences on the _Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_ TV show (out on DVD in the US yesterday, for those who're interested) which weren't computer generated at all. They're generally the ones that look too good to be computer graphics :-)
Ermmmm.... yes - there was a series by channel 4... The US series came later....
Actually there were more than one American series.
Here is the series list:
* The Channel 4 pilot. (later aired on Cinemax.)
* Max Headroom - This was a video music series run on Cinemax. It had intercut bits from the Channel 4 pilot for the first three episodes. Most of them had interviews with various music celebrities. There was a heavy emphasis on golf jokes. These were about 20 minutes each..I have about 10 of these. These include music videos I have not seen elesewhere. ("Rat on a Budget" and a couple of Max Headroom songs come to mind.)
* The Max Headroom Giant Christmas Turkey - Theis was a Max Headroom special that ran on Cinemax. VERY warped. (The only Christmas special that comes to mind with a children's choir singing about how Mary could not get an episiotomy in the manger.)
* The Max talking Headroom Show - This ran on Cinemax and was an hour interview show. It usually had three interviews and one commedian. I only have 2-3 of these. (The interview with William Shatner was pretty bizzare.)
* The ABC series - Ran for 14 episodes, only 13 where shown on ABC. (I have seen claims that episode 13 was not shown on ABC. I have a tape of it off of ABC. 12 & 13 were shown at real weird off times a couple of months later. Most people missed those, which is unfortunate as they were excelent.)
One of these days I need to complete my set of episodes. I am missing a bunch of the Cinemax stuff. I have yet to find a complete list of episodes for those early shows on the net. (Or why Cinemax stopped doing original programming.)
One of my favorite shows of all time. Now if they would just release all of it on DVD.
Blank Art
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."