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Minutes Cable TV Teleprogramming 12 4 07MINUTES OF CABLE COMMUNITY TELEPROGRAMMING COMMISSION MEETING December 4, 2007 CITY HALL ANNEX -1st FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM #3 MEMBERS PRESENT: Sr. Carol Hoverman, George Herrig, Pauline Maloney, Jennifer Tigges, Burton Everist. MEMBERS ABSENT: Two seats remain vacant on the Commission. OTHERS PRESENT: Jim Barefoot, Mediacom Craig Nowack, City of Dubuque Cable TV Coordinator Mr. Everist called the meeting to order at 4:10 p.m. 1. Acceptance of the Agenda. Upon a motion by Ms. Maloney, seconded by Sr. Hoverman, the agenda was accepted unanimously as published. 2. Approval of the Minutes of the November 6, 2007, Meeting Upon a motion of Ms. Tigges, seconded by Mr. Herrig, the Minutes of the November 6, 2007, Commission meeting were approved unanimously. 3. Public Comment Mr. Everist thanked Mediacom on behalf of NICC for Mediacom's help in producing the special regarding the special budget vote. They did a great job in a short amount of time. Mr. Barefoot explained that it was very nice working with those people over the course of the two-day shoot. Weather permitting, NICC has borrowed equipment to tape a graduation ceremony, so the "light bulb" has already gone on in their heads in terms of using public access television to get their message out. Mr. Barefoot also revealed that he has found a bug in their system that raises the volume level of programs when they are encoded on their playback server. He does not know what causes the problem but they are looking into it. Mr. Barefoot relayed a recent comment from Craig Schaefer at Loras College regarding the quality field production package that Mediacom has put together. 4. Access Equipment Expenditures Mr. Nowack reported $113,800 left in the PEG fund to be awarded. He also reported that a few more grants have been completed, including the cameras at the Dubuque County Courthouse. He did his first telecast there on Monday using the four new cameras. Sr. Hoverman asked if the City received any interest from the PEG fund and, if so, where it went. Mr. Nowack informed her that the interest went back into the fund to be used for more grants. Mr. Barefoot presented a request for funding to upgrade the non-linear editing facilities at the public access studio. He explained that these facilities are what gets used the most and they are in desperate need of upgrades. He would like to replace two of those systems -hardware and software - to get the latest versions of the software as well as more powerful computers with more storage. The software he is requesting is Adobe Creative Suite 3 which includes Premiere Pro which will allow HD editing. He requested a laptop and Creative Suite software to go with the Sony Anycast system. This will enable them to roll edited packages into remote programs. He requested funding for eight pairs of headphones. And he requested funding for a computer to put in the master control area to store programs that must be removed from the on-air servers to make room for new programming. Instead of a computer for offline storage, Mr. Nowack suggested a series of relatively inexpensive external hard drives. Mr. Barefoot does not need instant access to the files he needs to store. Mr. Barefoot said he would not know how to use these external drives without hooking them up to a computer to transfer the files. He envisioned the computer he is requesting as an intermediary storage device and a control mechanism for the Leightronix. Mr. Nowack still recommended the external drive storage solution, but thought a computer for the transfers was still warranted. He suggested a laptop for this purpose, for it would also be portable and could be used for remote productions as well. He did not think Mr. Barefoot needed a dedicated computer for the Leightronix 100% of the time. Because Mr. Barefoot did not have prices for what was being suggested, he removed the control room computer from his request. Ms. Maloney moved to approve $12,500 for the specified equipment. It was seconded by Sr. Hoverman and approved unanimously. 5. Access Programming and Promotion Mr. Barefoot reported that Hillcrest Family Services dropped off a videotaped program on breastfeeding which contains still images of women breastfeeding. He said it was done tastefully and asked if any Commissioners had any issues with it. He said that the NICC program mentioned earlier is running in advance of next week's vote. He also reported that someone got trained in using the equipment and checked it out in order to produce a video to play at a City Council meeting in order to request better signage for getting to Dubuque's hospitals. Mr .Barefoot reported that his assistant, Dustin, on his own has begun uploading some of the public access programs to YouTube in an effort to promote local Dubuque television. Ms. Tigges asked if the producers of those programs were being consulted prior to their videos being uploaded and Mr. Barefoot answered yes. Mr. Barefoot then asked Ms. Tigges about the possibility of uploading some videos to the local community access website. There followed a discussion about the best way to accomplish this. 6. Channel Programming Policies Mr. Nowack boiled down a long conversation he had with Gary Olsen at Dubuque Community Schools Friday afternoon to: Mr. Olsen wants to use the Cablecast server but does not want to spend the time to schedule his programs. Mr. Nowack suggested to him that this might be a great project for some high school students, but Mr. Olsen did not think there would be much interest in these non-paid duties. 2 Mr. Nowack told the Commission that he knows Mr. Olsen is busy, and that he is not sure what the next step is. He does not want the equipment purchased through grants to go unused. Ms. Tigges suggested that maybe this issue needs to be raised at a higher level than Mr. Olsen. Mr. Barefoot said that this all goes back to what he said at an earlier meeting: the access community has to find a way to get more people involved. There just are not enough bodies to do all the work. At this time Mr. Everist relinquished the chair and excused himself from the meeting. Ms. Maloney assumed the duties of the chair. This agenda item was then tabled. 7. Mediacom Cable Report Mr. Barefoot said he had nothing further to report. 8. Cable N Division Report Mr. Nowack announced that the City's Personnel Director has requested from the City Manager that an exam for the Video Producer position go to the Civil Service Commission for approval. It will be a take-home text that Mr. Nowack and Mr. Gehl, the City's Public Information Officer, will grade. Those who pass the test are eligible to be interviewed. Although he has enjoyed using the equipment at the Historic Federal Building, he hopes to have a replacement on board by budget hearing season. He reported that the City, Mediacom, and the school district are still in discussions to add Sageville School to the I-Net. Because of the winter season, it cannot happen now until spring. There were several phone conversations last week regarding the FCC order and its potential effects. There is great concern about the PEG fund -that it is actually being used for capital purposes. Mr. Nowack said he had all the paperwork to show that that is exactly what is happening in Dubuque. He is still trying to produce as much programming is possible. He just completed a program based on the keynote address at the Faces & Voices diversity conference last month at Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School. Mr. Nowack mentioned that he has been charged with producing a short video to play prior to live City Council meetings that explained the various actions and agenda items in a typical meeting. 9. Video On Demand Mr. Barefoot reported that two engineers were in his control room today prepping the fiber for the equipment that will enable a dedicated feed to the server in Des Moines. 10. Future Agenda Items Mr. Nowack suggested that Video on Demand be removed from the recurring agenda. Mr. Barefoot could include updates if there are any in his regular report. The Commission agreed. 3 11. Adjournment Upon a motion by Ms. Hoverman, seconded by Mr. Herrig, the meeting was adjourned at 5:20 p.m.