Live?[]
Was the system always able to create live playback of the puppets? The Craig Crane article on Muppet Wiki reads "From there, Craig took his puppeteering abilities to Nickelodeon UK in 1994, where he not only performed puppet characters, but was also the first person to perform a CGI character in real time on live TV, before the advent of the Henson Digital Performance System." -- Zanimum 15:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
- The system has always been able to provide live playback of the performance (and was a key element for the performers to be able to work the system; although the early HDPS's live playback looked a little more crude due to processing speeds of the time and so the image was re-render afterwards to look smoother and sharper in the final production). So most the early HDPS productions were pre-recorded (not live television broadcasts); so it is possible that Crane did the first real-time direct-to-broadcast live performance of a digital puppet (I don't know). However Jim Henson showed a real-time performance of Waldo C. Graphic on the Jim Henson Hour's "Secrets of the Muppets" episode - with his movements being played back live on the monitors in the studio as he acted (and that was well before 1994). I'm not sure what to make of the statement in Crane's article, as his move to Nickelodeon UK in 1994 would be after (not before) the advent of the Henson Digital Performance System (which was already being used and winning awards in the 1980s and early '90s). -- Brad D. (talk) 17:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)