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Minutes_Cable Teleprogramming 10 7 08MINUTES OF CABLE COMMUNITY TELEPROGRAMMING COMMISSION MEETING October 7, 2008 CITY HALL ANNEX - 2nd FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM #2 MEMBERS PRESENT: AI Vincent, Tom McDonough, Jennifer Tigges, Sr. Carol Hoverman, George Herrig, Pauline Maloney. MEMBERS ABSENT: Burton Everist. OTHERS PRESENT: Jim Barefoot, Mediacom Craig Nowack, City of Dubuque Cable TV Coordinator Ms. Maloney called the meeting to order at 3:05 p.m. 1. Acceptance of the Agenda Upon a motion by Sr. Hoverman, seconded by Mr. Vincent, the agenda was accepted as published unanimously. 2. Approval of the Minutes of the July 1, 2008, and August 5, 2008, Meetings (tabled on September 2, 2008) Upon a motion by Mr. Vincent, seconded by Mr. McDonough, this item was removed from the table unanimously. Upon a motion by Sr. Hoverman, seconded by Ms. Tigges, the Minutes of the July 1, 2008, Meeting were approved by Sr. Hoverman, Ms. Tigges, Mr. Herrig, and Ms. Maloney. Mr. McDonough and Mr. Vincent abstained. Upon a motion by Mr. Vincent, seconded by Mr. McDonough, the Minutes of the August 5, 2008, Meeting were approved by Mr. Vincent, Mr. McDonough, Ms. Maloney, and Mr. Herrig. Sr. Hoverman and Ms. Tigges abstained. 3. Approval of the Minutes of the September 2, 2008, Meeting Upon a motion by Mr. Herrig, seconded by Mr. Vincent, the Minutes of the September 2, 2008, Meeting were approved unanimously. 4. Public Comment There was no public comment. 5. Access Facilities Schedule Upon a motion by Mr. McDonough, seconded by Mr. Vincent, this item was tabled unanimously. 6. Access Equipment Expenditures Craig Schaefer and Jill Olson from Loras College presented a request for $44,360 for a portable production switcher, an intercom system, and a streaming encoder in order to put live productions on the Internet. The impetus behind their request was to obtain equipment that would enable them to produce live programming without needing the Mediacom production truck. Mr. Schaefer presented two quotes, neither of which had exactly what he had requested. Selecting the proper items from the two quotes, Mr. Schaefer's request totaled $52,867. Ms. Tigges raised the question of providing web streaming capabilities for an individual production entity, because then all producers of public access programming might request the equipment to stream their productions. Mr. Nowack thought the obvious place to consider web streaming would be at the access channel level, so everything on the channel would be streamed. Mr. Vincent moved to award $47,000 for the equipment Loras College requested except for the streaming encoder. The motion was seconded by Ms. Tigges and approved unanimously. Gary Olsen from Dubuque Community Schools presented a request for $5876.60 for a new Matrox RTX2 editing system to replace an aging system he is currently using. Besides increase the quality and speed of editing, this new system will provide HD capability. Ms. Tigges moved to award $6,000 for the editing system requested. The motion was seconded by Mr. Vincent and approved unanimously. 7. Grant Application Threshold (tabled on July 1, 2008) This item was not removed from the table. 8. Access Programming and Promotion Mr. Barefoot reported that the various access productions that Mediacom has been involved in, including the Spirit and Truth Conference, Wahlert opening liturgy, Loras football and soccer, two Doctor Doctor programs, some high school football, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Studio productions included The War Years and Wake Up America. Now that school is in session more programs have been coming in. 9. Mediacom Cable Report Mr. Barefoot said that he has been involved in meetings, tours, and training with various groups. He has been to Wahlert to meet with grant recipients about producing programs. Dubuque County Right to Life wants to begin doing an in-studio show and will be trained on how to use the equipment. He was pleased to report that staff and students from the University of Dubuque came and got a tour of the Mediacom facilities today. They are excited to be able to produce some programming. Mr. Barefoot responded to questions and phone calls he's received about audio issues involving the new Cablecast setup. There is an inherent problem with the server which causes programs to occasionally air with no audio. Tightrope is aware of the problem and is working on the fix. 10. Cable TV Division Report Mr. Nowack reported that the first live broadcast over the I-Net occurred yesterday when the City televised the County Board of Supervisors meeting from the Courthouse. Not all the systems are in place to do this exactly the way he wants, but the audio and video are 2 there and the meeting looked and sounded much better than those that aired over the B cable. Mr. Nowack and Mr. Schaefer discussed an idea proposed by Loras College students to do a live telecast on election night on CityChannel 8. The show would originate from the Courthouse or at City Hall Annex and feature live reports from various places around town. There are numerous issues to be worked through and permissions to be obtained before this happens, but they are being addressed. Mr. Nowack reported that it is budget preparation time for FY2010 and he is also heavily involved in the City's new website project. The website, scheduled to go live on November 21, will include live web streaming of CityChannel 8. That encoding server will be installed next week as well as a new routing switcher for the control room. On Monday, October 20, Granicus will be onsite for training and to begin indexing and archiving Council meetings. 11. Future Agenda Items No new items were discussed. 12. Adjournment Upon a motion by Mr. Herrig, seconded by Sr. Hoverman, the meeting was adjourned at 4:25 p.m.