Scientists Create Easier Way To Embed Objects Into Video

Ashutosh Saxena writes "Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed software that makes it easy to reach inside an existing video and place a photo on the wall so realistically that it looks like it was there from the beginning. The photo is not pasted on top of the existing video, but embedded in it. It works for videos as well — you can play a video on a wall inside your video. The technology can cheaply do some of the tricks normally performed by expensive commercial editing systems. The researchers suggest that anyone with a video camera might earn some spending money by agreeing to have unobtrusive corporate logos placed inside their videos before they are posted online."

Youtube

I thought there was more than enough advertisement on YouTube as it was already.

Re:Youtube

yea, it's kinda sad that they developed such a cool tech, and the first thing they thought to do with it is to plaster everyone's home videos with Coca-Cola logos. i mean, how much are you really going to be paid by Coca-Cola to add their logo to your home videos? does video documentation of your child's first steps or first words really need corporate sponsorship?

some things don't need to be monetized. now, covering up the playboy posters in videos of your dorm room to send to your parents--that's a useful application.

Yeah, that'll work

The researchers suggest that anyone with a video camera might earn some spending money by agreeing to have unobtrusive corporate logos placed inside their videos before they are posted online.

Just like web surfers no longer even glance at banner ads anymore, people will learn to ignore any corporate logos in videos (even if they really ARE there in real life!).

It will, and does

Modern advertising/branding isn't about actively convincing you anymore. It's about creating a pervasive environment of exposure in which you become familiar with a brand/product/logo whatever. In the store people are then more likely to subconsciously reach for Tide or Tylenol (despite the fact that generics are composed of essentially the same active ingredients) because they are familiar.

Nobody pays much attention to TV commercials anymore, and haven't for some time. Have advertisers markedly decreased their buying of TV commercial time? No, because you don't have to pay attention for it to work.

Re:It will, and does

It's about creating a pervasive environment of exposure

Also an effective way to brainwash a person too.

Re:It will, and does

The word 'brainwash' has always intrigued me. It sounds like it would be a good thing to have your brain washed. It would then be clean, fresh, and ready for its next adventure!

Besides, people with dirty minds probably could use a little brainwashing.

Greetings from Stepford!

Re:It will, and does

You can wash my brain if you want, but only with Tide or Tylenol.

Wait, why did I say Tylenol?

Re:It will, and does

I've noticed that ads are being chained to increase effectiveness.

For example, The SNL episode featuring the fake Sarah Palin had a later skit which showcased the MS Surface technology, then showed the Microsoft ads during the commercial breaks. Another show featured a very distinctive necklace worn by some lade ghost in a mirror on some chick show, and coincidentally the exact same necklace was featured in a commercial which sold them for some kind of real-life charity.

Re:It will, and does

I was worried about being dismissed as one 'o' them tinfoil-hat people. Will paranoia become the new "sane"? :)

It already has, but we've all agreed to not tell you.

Re:It will, and does

In the store people are then more likely to subconsciously reach for Tide or Tylenol (despite the fact that generics are composed of essentially the same active ingredients) because they are familiar.

I guess once again I'm outside the bell curve, as I use generics almost exclusively. Tylenol? Doesn't work. Advil? Hell no, generic Naproxin Sodium is 1/3 the price. Tide? Yeah, becasue I haven't found anything that works as good. Listerine? Yes, that brand was shown to reduce incidence of gum disease which I suffer from, and the generics are watered down, you can tell because they don't burn as bad (yes, I did try them and found them wanting).

However, NEGATIVE ads work well on me. Sony's rootkit bit me when my daughter trusted BMG and I'll never buy another Sony product again. I spent so much time under the hood of my Mustang in 1970 that I never again bought another Ford. Tyson Foods burned two dozen Mexicans alive in Georgia in the 1980s because they chained the fire exits shut to keep them from stealing chicken parts (a manager spent 2 years in prison for twenty five horrible deaths) and I'll pay MORE for generic meat than buy Tyson.

And some ads are so annoying that I deliberatly avoid the products.

You would think that the corporates would learn. It's an old adage that if you're happy with a product you MIGHT tell a friend, but if you feel like you've been ripped off you'll tell everybody.

Re:It will, and does

Tyson Foods burned two dozen Mexicans alive in Georgia in the 1980s because they chained the fire exits shut to keep them from stealing chicken parts (a manager spent 2 years in prison for twenty five horrible deaths) and I'll pay MORE for generic meat than buy Tyson.

You are basing your opinion of a whole company and all of its current and future products on the actions of a small group of people who made an error in judgment 20+ years ago? Sounds pretty petty to me.

- Ryan Jacobson
Union Carbide, Project Manager
Bhopal Division

Re:Generics

There are cases for generic and cases for non-generic.

There's nothing to say that brands are evil, just that brands with heavy advertising aren't necessarily more worthy of a purchase.

When it comes to drugs, generics actually ARE composed of essentially the same thing, but when it comes to card or liquor or computer parts, "generics" are definitely not.

However, purchasing a car bumper because the TV showed a hot woman rubbing on it is different than purchasing it because it's a superior product.

That's the contention this whole thread. Some people seem to think that advertising legitimately will make me pay more for an identical or inferior product, without my conscious knowledge, which I have argued as a bit of bunk, at least the enormous majority of the time, for me personally.

Re:Generics

I've tried generic alcohol before. It didn't sit with me well at all.

Long story short, keep away from the Isopropyl brand of hard liquor. It may be cheap, but you sure do pay for it tomorrow!

The death of advertising

Does anyone notice that the more pervasive advertising is, the less effective it is?

In other words, people build filters for it. I know within younger generations, advertising is almost invisible.

I recall older people at work asking me "did you notice that new ad on the webpage?"

To which I responded "uhm... our webpage has ads?"

Because I spend enough time on the web to have almost totally filtered them out (yeah, adblock does a bunch of that for me, but even without it....)

I don't think I could tell you after a TV show, who the sponsors were. Commercial time is just blank in my mind because I tune it out.

I don't think I've EVER clicked on an ad in a webpage. I don't know for sure, but television and radio advertising rarely affect my purchasing decisions, at least not in a way I can discern.

So, legitimately, how powerful is a wall-hanging logo for Pepsi in some random goofy youtube video ACTUALLY going to be?

Am I a total oddity in not even noticing most advertising?

Re:The death of advertising

You think you are immune, but you are not. Perhaps you are not interested in 99.9% of the products out there. But when an ad for that that product or service you are interested in, you will pay attention.

Re:The death of advertising

Probably.

I saw ads for the new Nikon camera, which reminded me I had meant to drop by the local camera shop because It was something I'd been wanting to do (upgrade my camera)

I ended up doing some research and bought a Canon from an online discount shop.

Yay for Nikon ads.

Oh, thank goodness!

Because if there's one thing we all need in our lives, it's more inane advertising plastered over every square inch of vertical surfaces.

John Holmes move over...

Yes! Now you too can star in your very own pr0n movie!

Ah, the wonders of software!

I was afraid this might happen

When American football television broadcasts started featuring real-time "underlays" of such play-by-play landmarks as line of scrimmage and first down mark, a worried little voice at the back of my head wondered if someone would use this technology to underlay advertising. I think I've seen just such things (i.e., digitally-projected advertising hoardings in the video background, even logos "projected" into the playing field). Now this kind of stuff will be easy and ubiquitous.

As little as we can trust digital visual media now, it'll be even less trustworthy.

Re:I was afraid this might happen

They already do - those advertising boards on the side? They're electronically generated - have been for years. That's why when you see something played in another country all the adverts are in english.

Stanford sold out

It is nice to see top universities working on better advertising. You know, I was thinking to myself just yesterday, "There is just not enough product placement in society. I hope someone makes it easier to put advertising in digital media."

Re:Stanford sold out

I dunno, it seems that this knowledge is directly applicable to all kinds of serious real-world problems involving computer vision, particularly automated car driving (the Stanford [wikipedia.org] connection might just be a coincidence, but there's a lot of overlap).

Somebody tell the BertIsEvil guy.

Somebody tell the BertIsEvil guy.

A few points of note:

1. Initially from a computer forensics pov, it would be trivial to detect if a video has been altered, however i think with further improvements in the embedding technology where the actual advert piece is better rendered to take into account surrounding lighting conditions it might become more difficult, however not impossible to detect intentional modifications

2. Just as with current browser ad-blockers, the these ads can also be blocked out, in-fact the technology proves that complex camera conditions such as rotational pan(the heros examples) and occlusion (fat chick on couch) can be easily determined, so creating a blank out mask of a texture that is close to the surrounding surface would also be quiet doable, perhaps not real-time at the moment, but doable nonetheless, and most definitely live sometime in the future perhaps.

Nothing new here

Maybe these Stanford geeks don't watch football... that yellow first-down line is actually *not* painted on the field, it's inserted into the live video feed electronically. While doing it live requires some reasonable amount of processing power, doing it by non-real-time processing is pretty trivial (it's just a 3D texture map).

The technology to do this was commonly available in the mid-90's.