SOTU Meta: Who Saw the Fades?

Did anyone else see some of the things I did during the broadcast?

One bizarre thing I noticed was at least two instances where the video subtly faded from one frame to another.  If I had been watching it on a webcast, I would have said it was a buffering error.  The first one I thought I was imagining it, but the second one was clear, if subtle.  That one came, IIRC just a couple minutes before the "lookit these people in the gallery I brought in as props" segment.

He was saying something along the lines of "...and Congress fff... fun... [SPLICE] funded the program..." Visually it was obvious because there was a slight shift in Pelosi's image as she was sitting down, it faded from one position to another, as if the video had shifted a couple seconds forward.  Is that possible?  Could the network have had the president on a 7-second delay or something?

FWIW, I was watching the speech on disney belialABC.  don't know if it would show up elsewhere.

did he make a bad fumble, which they decided to cover for?

Also in the meta vein, I found it extra hard to take anything seriously that Dubya said with Cheney smirking away right behind him.  The Dick seems to have taken on the smirk-load for both of them tonight.  But in particular, right when George pitched his line about reducing gas consumption by 25%, Dick looked over at someone on the Republican side of the room and winked.  Seriously.  Anyone who Tivo'd it, go back and check these things out, because I don't think I'm imagining them.

Any other weird meta observations about the way the speech was staged, or the way the MSM handled it?

•  The media coverage before the speech

  Basically talked only about how it was going to be almost entirely on domestic policy.  The actual speech was him rushing through all those boring 'policy' proposals to get to his usual delusions-of-grandeur warmongering rhetoric, which took up at least half the speech.

  I'm wondering if the plan was for it to gloss over Iraq but Bush demanded he be given a chance to rant about foreign policy or what.  It ended up being a primarily foreign policy speech

  by nomen on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:13:57 PM PDT

  •  the media were just lying

    The speech seemed to be the same released beforehand.  The media all had it, they just were more interested in spin.

    by John DE on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:20:25 PM PDT

•  *You didn't imagine it*

  I noticed the wink too. I also got distracted several times by either Cheney or Pelosi looking like they were either chewing or sucking on something. What's up with that?

  by cackyp on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:13:57 PM PDT

  •  Yeah, Pelosi was smacking on...

    ...something. She looked like she was preparing a spitwad.

    by Bensdad on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:21:13 PM PDT

    •  keep those spitwads dry!

      man if she was i wish she'd hit him when he pulled the "democrat party" BS.  i woulda tapped him on the shoulder and corrected him.

      by zeke L on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:44:18 PM PDT

  •  Not sure about Cheney...

    But I'm almost positive Nancy Pelosi was biting her tongue. :)

    by slksfca on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:22:41 PM PDT

  •  I saw it, too...

    He snuck a lozenge or candy or nausea medicine about 5 minutes in. (Cheney Sucks - Hard Candy)

    I was hoping it was a Riccola that would set him to yodeling in the middle of w's performance.

    Or anything sharp that would lodge in his windpipe and turn the bastard blue.

    by snowho on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:04:36 PM PDT

    •  YodeelaydeeREC! n/t

      by Crashing Vor on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 04:55:21 AM PDT

  •  That's what happens...

    everytime those bastards start messing with the matrix.

    RUN! Hide!

    by God loves goats on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:10:10 PM PDT

  •  It looked like Pelosi working her lipstick...

    Cheney was ruminating his dinner of baby legs.

    by ormondotvos on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:15:53 PM PDT

•  Actually it wasn't him.

  It was his body double.  Or Sadaam Hussein's body double.  I forget which.

  by rserven on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:14:44 PM PDT

  •  ewww... a double for either tyrant?

    that's worth revisiting dinner over...ulp.

    by trashablanca on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:31:45 PM PDT

  •  saddam double down

    the one with or without the head?

    by zeke L on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:33:35 PM PDT

•  I didn't catch it..

  ..but whether it's possible. It sure is, he may have been on a few seconds delay and for some reason a few frames may have been cut. For what reason? I wouldn't know...maybe to end the speech a few seconds sooner? Or maybe it was all a technical glitch.

  by justalittlebitcrazy on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:19:03 PM PDT

  •  what reason

    yeah, i wondered that myself.  i suppose it could be some kind of technical reason, such as they were using some kind of a digital stream and there was some frame slippage due to buffering or something - and presumably they'd have better tech to make it look more natural than when youtube gets stuck.  that would be an explanation i could buy, if we had an up-to-date modern studio video geek to explain it.

    but i wondered if he had stumbled or flubbed a line, and ABC cut a half-second out to make him look not quite so much like a doofus.  i could absolutely see them doing that.  and it might not show up, at least not in the same place, on other networks.

    by zeke L on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:32:43 PM PDT

    •  no

      SOTU is a pool feed. Each network is getting exactly the same thing out of the capital.

      by tvb on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:34:22 PM PDT

      •  who runs the feed?

        so there's a crew somewhere taking the different cameras and managing cuts and all that somewhere in the capitol?  who do they work for?

        yeah, in that case it would have been on all the channels.

        is it possible they might have duplicate cameras side-by-side for the main view?  i suppose it might have been something like a teensy bit of parallax, like you might see if you switched from one eye to another.

        by zeke L on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:42:11 PM PDT

        •  It depends

          The SOTU and other capital pool events are produced on a rotating basis by the 5 networks - abc, cbs, ms/nbc, fnc, cnn. PBS may be on this rotating pool or they may simply pay into the pool - I don't recall how it works for them. I have no idea who did it this year. I think last year was CNN if I recall correctly but it changes every year.

          Most of the cameras are permenantly mounted in the house chamber and the director of the pool would be the one directing the shot to take.

          However, that blip you saw really was just an error correction after the line signal was somehow disturbed. It could have been atmospheric as well from the space it was coming out on. If it helps you to believe that - there are literally hundreds of people involved in getting that thing on the air at each respective network. There is no way in hell that anyone anywhere would get away with trying to cover something up. It makes for fun tinfoil folding but beyond that is simply vivid imaginations at work.

          If you want to keep the tinfoil on, consider most of the techs who do that stuff are union and as such, not the biggest fans of Bushco.

          by tvb on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:09:50 PM PDT

          •  line disturbance

            hmm.  it really didn't look like any kind of signal interruption i've ever seen.  it was a fade, although over a very small timestep.  we'd have to get video to check out what it might have been.

            i'm well aware there are a very large number of people involved, and there's no way they could "cover up" something major.  i'm not suggesting there was a 10-second gap where his skin turned red, horns sprouted and he pronounced "i am the chief minion of satan on earth" while his eyes glowed and cheney cackled in the background before the scene returned to normal.

            i'm wondering more if it could be some kind of fluffing, not a cover-up.  just to make him look a little better.  i could easily see any of the MSM outlets doing that.  doubly so for a team working the feeds out of the capitol.

            by zeke L on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:20:35 PM PDT

            •  I wear tinfoil, pay AFL CIO dues and vote Dem

              and you made me laugh.  Of course, I read far too many Philip K Dick stories too.  You want to believe in technological parameters, that's cool.  I smoke pot.  Same difference I guess.

              by RichmondLib on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:44:52 PM PDT

•  I didn't see these things

  since I was mostly relying on the live blogging, but I just wanted to let you know I'd read your diary and will be interested in any responses you get.

  by roses on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:23:26 PM PDT

•  If you have a digital box

  On cable all sorts of artifacts can happen-- that's probably what it was.

  by jgkojak on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:30:58 PM PDT

  •  not an artifact

    yeah i see those all the time and they're annoying.  certain parts of the field, especially those with complex motion, derezz into a big mess of squares.

    that wasn't what happened at all.  it was definitely a fade - like when you splice two parts of a video together and try to make it look less obvious.

    by zeke L on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:37:08 PM PDT

•  lil digital transmission burp

  I saw it and it was nothing. Someone probably stepped on a cable and with a digital signal it doesn't take much to give a little wiggle like you saw.

  by tvb on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 09:33:26 PM PDT

•  I saw Cheney smirking during the ...

  energy comments of Bush's speech and wondered who he was looking at... inquiring minds want to know.

  by va dare on Tue Jan 23, 2007 at 10:18:53 PM PDT

•  Dick wasn't smirking..he was farting

  which explains the pained expression on Nancy's face throughout...well that and what was being said was the verbal bullshit to go with the smell.

  by skippythebox on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 01:04:26 AM PDT

•  Cheney

  After Bush said, "Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years", Cheney smirked and tried to hold in a laugh.  Then he just couldn't hold it in and laughed openly, looking to his left and winking at someone.

  What outrageous behavior!  An ultra rich greedy guy who made millions off oil profits openly laughing about reducing gasoline use while knowing he was on national TV during the SOTU address.  Wow.

  by reality77 on Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 07:53:02 AM PDT