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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2012-01-17Cable Access Oversight Committee minutes Jan. 17, 2012 (as approved Feb. 15, 2012) The PEGASYS Access Oversight Committee (AOC) met at 4:40 pm on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, in the PEGASYS studio, 612 W. Green St., Ithaca, NY. Present: AOC members Wayles Browne, Mike Brutvan, Cynthia Brock, Wies van Leuken, chair Rich DePaolo; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli; Ithaca College student station manager J.P. Mosca. 0) Notes by W. Browne as AOC secretary. 1) Rich DePaolo called the meeting to order and welcomed new member Cynthia Brock (liaison from City of Ithaca Common Council). 2) Agenda Additions and /or Deletions: none. 3) Minutes of the Dec. 6, 2011 meeting: approved with the addition of an explicit text of the resolution that was passed. 4) Public Comment: none. 5) Ithaca College report. JP Mosca: we now have one program "Special Project" on Channel 16, devoted to student producers' own ideas, e.g. a show on Mayor Myrick; also looking into broadcasting from concert hall, moving the present background camera [= 2 previously stated interests of AOC]. JP and advisor will discuss the possibilities of bringing in educational programming from various sources outside IC. Carol Jennings is Director of Park Media Lab, which contains ICTV and the Outside Production Unit. ICTV has an automatic playback device but it's not presently working, so we can only telecast when there's a paid engineer at the IC studio. DePaolo: will e -mail Ms. Jennings to invite her to next AOC meeting. Van Leuken: PEG Studio Manager Stefanelli can play DVDs or files over Channel 16, as well as feeds from IC's satellite dish, so this might be an alternative to sending shows from IC's studio; it would not require an on -site engineer at IC. 6) Election of Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary. The slate of Rich DePaolo, Wies van Leuken, and Wayles Browne was nominated by Brock and seconded by Brutvan. They were voted in unanimously. 7) Adoption of meeting time: it will be the second Tuesday in the month unless members agree otherwise. 8) Notification to educational institutions to submit funding proposals; review of current use of equipment and program production. AOC agreed that, when inviting institutions' requests for equipment, we should spell out that if no programming results, PEG can reclaim equipment. L. Stefanelli will draft an invitation letter; before it is sent out, AOC will look at the list of recipients, as well as at the agreement they will be asked to sign. We will ask interested institutions to send a representative to the March meeting. 2 9) Member reports. a. Use of staff time for Production and Transmission Services: DePaolo will seek again to discuss the question with the Asst. City Attorney. b. Results of survey of producers: Brutvan can do such surveys in the future. c. Meeting of Town of Ithaca Rep. with TWC: report. DePaolo: TWC manager T. Doheny has some financial information, and will meet with me soon. 10) Studio Manager's Report (attached). Summary of user fee collections in 2011: $140 was collected from 7 producers ($20 each) in Jan. -June 2011. In July -Dec., five of these were inactive while two of them paid $20 each, one additional producer paid $20, and another $30, total $90. Grand total for the year: $230. Stefanelli (to questions): one of the new pieces of equipment is a camera that records on cards. We'll try it out and get more if we like this type. (To a question about viewing difficulties): Channels 13, 15, and 16 are carried digitally over cable, but they were the last of all the channels to become digital, so that any imperfections in the cable will lose 13, 15 and 16 first- -they are the "caboose" of the cable system. At present they are still sent out in analog format too. Digital subscribers should call TWC service if these channels appear to be missing. [Further discussion: on next meeting's agenda.] 11) Next Meeting: Tuesday Feb. 14, 2012, 4:30 p.m. [subsequently changed to: Wednesday Feb. 15, 1:00]. 12) Adjourned 6:10. Contact information for AOC members: Cynthia Brock, Common Council liaison <cbrock @cityofithaca.org> Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2 @cornell.edu> Rich DePaolo, chair <rd @richdepaolo.com> Wies van Leuken, vice chair <pmv4 @cornell.edu> Michael Brutvan <mbrutvan @me.com> [Current] Web site for the PEGASYS studio, with program schedules: http://pegasys.webstarts.com/index.html studio location: 612 West Green Street, Ithaca, New York mailing address: 519 West State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 phone (607) 272 -7272 fax (607) 277 -5404 PEGASYS staff. studio manager Lauren Stefanelli <lauren.stefanelli @twcable.com> To: AOC January 2012 Access Studio Coordinator Report - Equipment Fund All equipment in the 2011 equipment plan has arrived. Some has been installed, while the rest will be available in coming weeks. - PEGASYS Hours PEGASYS hours have been changed, as per last month's discussion and vote. So far, response has been positive. - PEGASYS Fees $230 was collected in user fees in 2011. Report attached. Institutional Access Time Warner has purchased a webcasting unit and service for the city of Ithaca. It was installed on 1/12 and should start being used in the near future to do simultaneous live webcasting of city meetings. Tompkins County is in discussion with Time Warner about upgrading its coaxial INET to fiber and moving to its new meeting location.