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Does The Kinect Produce Radiohead-esque Video Quality?

Sure, Echo Lake’s video for Young Silence takes down Radiohead’s House of Cards in terms of budget. But aesthetically? You be the judge.

To create the visuals for Radiohead’s groundbreaking 2008 “House of Cards” video, artist Aaron Koblin used a set of expensive 360-degree LIDAR laser capturing systems and a Geometric Informatics System (to produce structured light) in lieu of cameras. At the time, the idea of using real-time data capturing technology was something so risky that the video’s director, James Frost, thought Radiohead would be one of the only bands willing to undergo the experiment.

Fast forward to 2011, and you can’t go a day without reading about the latest trends in Kinect hacking. Just yesterday we saw the band Echo Lake’s video for their new single “Young Silence,” shot by Dan Nixon on the Kinect. Along with partner Dom Jones, Nixon spent seven weeks editing the footage using custom applications developed in Cinder, and was partly inspired by the work of prodigious Kinect hacker Flight 404.

We think that overall, the “Young Silence” imagery is clearer than that of “House of Cards,” but that might be because Thom Yorke’s “data” was purposely distorted by a plexiglass window fixed with pieces of mirror. But all Kinect-pimping aside, the Kinect’s wide-ranging motion and spatial capturing capabilities are in no way comparable to the level of sophistication of the LIDAR…yet. Still, it’s none too shabby for a $150 device.

Compare the videos for “Young Silence” (above) and “House of Cards” (below) and tell us what you think.

[via Fast Company]