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They’re everywhere you look! Computers, that is – as David Dorn noticed at the opening of the Commonwealth Games. There was I slumped on the sofa, marvelling at the spectacle of 72 countries’ athletes marching around the stadium at Manchester (shouldn’t we be saying “Personchester” in these politically correct times?). I was enthralled, and delighted by the sight of each nation’s flag being shown on the track as the flag-bearer marched onto the field. Given that the lighting show had been somewhat spectacular up until then, I’m fondly imagined that they’d rigged up a super-powerful projector, and were projecting the image to the floor of the stadium. Well, actually, that’s what She Who Must Be Obeyed had opined, and I hadn’t seen any reason to disagree with her. That was until a flag bearer whose suit was much the same colour as the covering of the stadium floor disappeared, all bear his hands and face as he walked over the “projected” flag! Suddenly, the penny dropped – the Beeb was using blue-screen technology to overlay the flag images on the picture – the crowd at the stadium could not see these “projected” flags at all! Thereafter, I noticed that the director was cutting away to another shot as soon as a flag bearer with a light-blue suit got even close to the area which they were overlaying. Sometimes he got it right, sometimes the bearer would speed up a touch and dash into the “flag”, and would partially disappear. It became quite entertaining. The point, of course, is that the Beeb was using computers to radically change actuality into something else. Had the Games’ organisers not chosen that particular colour of suit for some of the bearers, there’d have been a great many folks none the wiser. Being a curious sort, I started looking very carefully at what else was being shown on the telly as far as the opening was concerned, trying to see whether Aunty was pulling any more fast ones. Lights My first port of call was the lighting show. Now, I know a little bit about Intelligent Lighting, having designed a computer-controlled system for the band I play in. It uses a control set called DMX512 – basically a system of transferring numerical values along a two-wire (or three-wire) network to lighting units each individually identified by a numerical value. It’s a lot like Midi, but uses a serial port protocol of a type that isn’t normally found on PCs. I checked the lighting, and it was consistent with DMX protocols – no strange digital manipulation going on there. Some very clever programming of the light colours and movements, mind, and some extremely powerful lights, as well, but no digital video trickery. To come back to which, I have to say that I’m quite impressed by the computing boffins at the Beeb. What they did was done in real time, and had I not been quite as eagle-eyed, they’d have got away with it quite nicely. Just goes to show, eh? They’re everywhere you look, these computer thingies!
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