Minutes Cable TV Teleprogramming Commission 8 5 08
MINUTES OF CABLE COMMUNITY TELEPROGRAMMING COMMISSION MEETING
August 5, 2008
CITY HALL ANNEX – 2nd FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM #2
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Al Vincent, Tom McDonough, Pauline Maloney, George Herrig.
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Sr. Carol Hoverman, Burton Everist, Jennifer Tigges.
OTHERS PRESENT:
Jim Barefoot, Mediacom
Craig Nowack, City of Dubuque Cable TV Coordinator
Mr. Herrig called the meeting to order at 4:01 p.m.
1. Acceptance of the Agenda
Upon a motion by Mr. Vincent, seconded by Ms. Maloney, the agenda was accepted as
published unanimously.
2. Approval of the Minutes of the May 6, 2008, Meeting
Upon a motion by Ms. Maloney, seconded by Mr. McDonough, approval of the Minutes of
the May 6, 2008, Commission meeting were tabled unanimously.
3. Public Comment
There was no public comment.
4. Access Equipment Expenditures
Mr. Nowack updated the commission on the status of the Capital Grant for Access
Equipment and Facilities noting that the adjustment for the fourth quarter of FY08 arrived in
July, adding $7,235. He also informed the commission that the Roosevelt Middle School
grant request of $21,300 failed to include funding for connectors for the ends of the
auditorium cabling project. Because Mr. Nowack assumed the commission would want
there to be connectors on the cables, and because Mr. DeGree is getting less expensive
tripods, there should be enough left over in the grant to purchase those connectors.
Mr. Barefoot presented a request for three camcorder lens extenders, a new character
generator system for the public access studio, and an intercom system totaling $17,219.
Ms. Maloney made a motion to approve up to $17,500 for this equipment. The motion was
seconded by Mr. McDonough and approved unanimously.
Mr. Nowack presented a request for $4,194 for a mini-DV deck that transfers high
definition video as well as down converting HD video to standard definition. Mr. Vincent
made a motion to approve up to $4,294 for the request. The motion was seconded by Mr.
McDonough and approved unanimously.
5. Grant Application Threshold (tabled on July 1, 2008)
This item was not removed from the table.
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6. Access Programming and Promotion
Mr. Barefoot relayed a conversation he had recently with Gary Olsen at the school district
about purchasing an inexpensive DVD recorder to provide backup capabilities for
productions at The Forum. This would also provide a DVD of school board meetings for
Video On Demand. Mr. Nowack reported that he has just purchased a couple of
DVR/DVD units in order to provide backup recording capabilities for Supervisors meetings
and field productions recorded with the Sony Anycast.
7. Mediacom Cable Report
Mr. Barefoot informed the commission that the direct fiber link between his control room
and the Video On Demand server in Des Moines is now functioning and working very well.
This allows for a very quick turnaround in making material available for VOD.
Mr. Barefoot reported that he has been working with Tom DeGree at Eleanor Roosevelt
Middle School in fine tuning the proposed setup for the wiring of the auditorium in ways
that should be more efficient there.
Mr. Barefoot asked the commission to address the issue of public access studio hours and
availability. The franchise agreement mandates a minimum of 57 hours per week of
availability. Currently the studio has been used on Saturdays quite a bit. These hours
come in addition to the 57 hours during the week. He would like the commission to
consider allowing him to close the studio one night per week when the studio has been
booked on a Saturday. He said that often the facilities are open on Tuesday nights and no
members of the public are there doing any work.
Mr. Vincent suggested that Mr. Barefoot come back with a proposal on facility availability
for the commission to consider. Mr. Herrig noted that having a set schedule is appreciated
by those users who have projects in the works – they know when they can have access to
the facilities. He also mentioned that access production as evolved over the years away
from using studio facilities to productions shot on location. Mr. Vincent suggested that the
colleges and universities that constantly request the public access field package get their
own field packages so they don’t have to rely on the availability of Mediacom equipment
and personnel.
8. Cable TV Division Report
Mr. Nowack informed the commission that the City’s program production has drastically
increased now that the new Video Producer is on board. In FY08 the City produced 11
City Journal programs; through the first five weeks of FY09, there have been seven City
Journals produced.
Mr. Nowack has been very involved in the website redesign. The go-live date as of now is
scheduled to be November 21. Granicus will be doing the web streaming portion of the
web site to make meetings and other programs available on demand.
He reported some annoying equipment problems in CityChannel 8’s operation. There is
some sort of problem between Cablecast and the Kramer router that sends the various
sources on the air. Sporadically, the routing switcher will not switch, so a program will run
on the server but it won’t get switched on the air. This shows up as a COM port failure on
the Cablecast computer. He has been working with Cablecast on this and has put in two
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different computers and several different RS-232 cables. So far nothing has solved the
problem.
Mr. Barefoot reported that he has had the same problem between his Leightronix and
Kramer router. It showed up as a communications error.
9. Future Agenda Items
Mr. Vincent suggested the access studio schedule as an agenda item.
10. Adjournment
Upon a motion by Mr. Vincent, seconded by Mr. McDonough, the meeting was adjourned
at 5:03 p.m.
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