Minutes Cable Teleprogram 3 7 06
MINUTES OF CABLE COMMUNITY TELEPROGRAMMING COMMISSION MEETING
March 7, 2006
CITY HALL ANNEX - 2nd FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM #2
MEMBERS PRESENT: Burton Everist, Pauline Maloney, George Herrig, Jennifer Tigges,
Sr. Carol Hoverman OSF
MEMBERS ABSENT: Maria Araeipour. One seat remains vacant on the Commission.
OTHERS PRESENT: Jim Barefoot, Mediacom
Craig Nowack, City of Dubuque Cable TV Coordinator
Sr. Hoverman called the meeting to order at 5:39pm.
1. Acceptance of the Agenda.
Upon a motion by Mr. Everist, seconded by Ms. Maloney, the agenda was
accepted unanimously as published.
2. Approval of the Minutes of the February 7, 2006 Meeting
Upon a motion of Ms. Tigges, seconded by Mr. Herrig, the Minutes of the February
7,2006 Commission meeting were approved unanimously as amended.
3. Public Comment
None.
4. Access Equipment Expenditures
Mr. Nowack presented a Capital Grant for Access Equipment and Facilities
Update, noting that $14,832.18 had been disbursed for the Dubuque Community
School District grant, as well as another $366.05 for the Eleanor Roosevelt Middle
School grant.
Mr. Barefoot requested $6089 from the Commission for a new switcher for the
access studio. His new cameras cannot genlock to the old production switcher, but
the new switcher he's requesting has internal genlock and will work with the new
cameras. He also noted that Dubuque Community School District is requesting
$350 for a router/firewall to protect the streaming web portion of their new
education channel.
Mr. Everist and Ms. Tigges questioned the appropriateness of allocating money for
the School District's request since it involved the web rather than cable television.
A discussion followed. Mr. Everist moved to grant $6089 for a new switcher for the
public access studio; Ms. Malone seconded. The motion was approved
unanimously.
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Mr. Nowack reminded the Commission that the City of Dubuque still had a request
of approximately $14,000 for a new message information system on the table. Ms.
Maloney recalled that the Commission agreed to re-consider this request in April.
5. Access Programming and Promotion
Mr. Everist mentioned that he had talked with people at the Mississippi River
Museum & Aquarium about getting some programs on the public access channel.
Mr. Barefoot reported that the Museum had contracted with Tim Brechlin to edit
some footage for this possibility.
Ms. Tigges noted that she sees the access camera all over town and wondered
about the audio quality. Mr. Barefoot said that access users don't always take the
necessary steps to ensure quality production. His staff does a great deal of work
for access users but they can't do everything. All told, the Commission is very
concerned about quality.
Mr. Everist raised the possibility of cablecasting live from City Expo in April. Mr.
Nowack said that the City intended to videotape the event with the intent to
produce a program for CityChannel 8. Mr. Barefoot offered to bring the Anycast
station to the event to help facilitate a cablecast. A discussion ensued about the
merits and dangers of carrying a live event with the public. Mr. Nowack promised
to discuss the idea with his superiors at the City.
6. Revision of Public Access Handbook
Because of the scope of this item, Sr. Hoverman suggested a separate session to
deal with it. Mr. Barefoot explained he still uses the current handbook which
covers the majority of important topics.
7. Access Equipment Grant Process
A lengthy discussion on this topic touched upon the following areas:
. The application process
. Percentage of I-Net expenditures
. I-Net use
. Live programming from I-Net sites
. Who is eligible for grants
. Ownership of equipment purchased through this grant
Mr. Nowack said that he would provide some web links for more information on 1-
Nets.
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8. Mediacom Cable Report
Mr. Barefoot reported that he had shot some high definition video at a recent Loras
College Color Guard event and that it looked very good. Mr. Herrig, who was
present for that test, concurred.
9. Cable TV Division Report
Mr. Nowack said that the equipment the Commission authorized the City to
purchase at last month's meeting had been ordered and should start arriving soon.
He said that he'd been getting many good program ideas from a series of new-hire
orientations he'd been having with the various City departments.
10. P.E.G. Video on Demand
Mr. Barefoot said that according to the franchise agreement, Video on Demand
(VOD) must be on by December, and that Mediacom will begin testing their system
in the fall. He mentioned that Dubuque's PEG VOD is a first for Mediacom. He
reported that the VOD encoder will reside at the Mediacom facility in Des Moines,
and that VOD is a topic for discussion at a regional company meeting in the near
futu re.
Ms. Tigges said that she'd recently sent out some e-mail inquiries about PEG VOD
but had had no good responses. Additionally, she'd seen some PEG VOD on a
cable system in Cincinnati and that the delivery system was bad and she'd seen a
good bit of digital artifacting. This prompted a discussion about exactly what PEG
material would be suitable for VOD offerings. The Commissioners in general felt
that programs offered via VOD must meet certain quality requirements.
Guidelines for exactly what programs will be offered via VOD and how often this
material will be replaced were mentioned as still needing to be worked out.
11. Future Agenda Items
No new agenda items were suggested.
12. Adjournment
Upon a motion of Mr. Everist, seconded by Ms. Maloney, the meeting was
adjourned at 7:32pm.
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