HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-2012-02-15Cable Access Oversight Committee minutes Feb. 15, 2012 (as approved Mar. 13,
2012)
The PEGASYS Access Oversight Committee (AOC) met at 1 pm on
Wednesday, Feb. 15, 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; producer Rev.
Sonya Hicks; Carol Jennings, Ithaca College.
0) Notes by W. Browne as AOC secretary.
1) Rich DePaolo called the meeting to order.
2) Agenda Additions and /or Deletions: none.
3) Minutes of the Jan. 17, 2012 meeting: approved without changes.
4) Public Comment. Sonya Hicks, pastor, produces 2 programs: Now Faith
Ministries, a presentation of the Jesus Only Apostolic Church of God, and New
Beginnings - -a talk show about ideas. She has her own camera. She has a variety of
concerns: - The present short studio hours, especially the Wed. afternoon hours
which are difficult for people working full -time. - The studio being open only 4
days. The Committee should look for more funding if that can increase hours. Can
studio manager Lauren Stefanelli prepare someone else to replace her as needed? -
Rev. Hicks has visited the Rochester public access studio, which has excellent
equipment. - Many Ithaca viewers have only cable TV but no satellite and no
computers. - She hopes that Southside Community Center can have a program, and
offers her support for it.
The AOC assured her that we share her concerns, and briefly mentioned the
negotiations that will soon start about the new franchise beginning in 2013.
5) Discussion with Carol Jennings, Director of Park Media Lab, Ithaca College.
The Park Media Lab supervises ICTV and runs Media Productions.
Rich DePaolo: hopes for more, and more varied, programming from IC.
Jennings: IC used to have more, then the renovation of the Music School some
years ago made it more difficult. To a question about broadcasting theatrical or
musical performances: copyright or union problems may get in the way. But she
wishes to encourage students to produce more programs. They make their own
program proposals.
W. van Leuken: Of the 3 Public - Educational - Governmental channels, ch. 16
often has no program (just a view of Ithaca College), ergo it's not relevant for the
community.
Jennings: There is interest in expanding Newswatch.
The AOC pointed out the importance of keeping 3 channels for P, E, and G.
DePaolo: a consortium of municipalities is now forming for negotiating the
next cable franchise (from 2013 on); can it draw on expertise from the Park School?
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Jennings noted that IC is in the midst of converting to High Definition TV. The
IC studios are still SD, Standard Definition, but outside the studios students use HD.
Jennings clarified her role and those of David Priester, Director of Technical
Facilities, Park School, IC, and J.P. Mosca, Manager of ICTV (an IC student).
6) Access Studio Coordinator Report.
a. Awards will be presented Fri. March 16.
b. The Rochester access center held an open house; Stefanelli and Sonya Hicks
went.
c. Stefanelli wrote to Martha Robertson, chair of Tompkins County
Legislature, giving a cost estimate for extending a dedicated fiber INET connection
to the legislature's planned new location at 125 E. Court St.
d. Stefanelli gave us the text of the letter she is sending to a mailing list of
schools, Cooperative Extension, the City Youth Bureau, Greater Ithaca Activities
Center, Southside, and the County Government inviting requests to use educational
channel 16 and government access channel 15, as well as applications for equipment
funding. Deadline: Apr. 2012, for the present year. AOC is interested in getting
actual programming as a condition for such schools to keep equipment.
e. Stefanelli provided a preliminary report for access equipment spending vs.
fund accrual covering 2004 -2010. The figures were approx. $130,300 vs. $103,800.
f. She presented a 2012 PEGASYS Capital Budget draft:
- Contingency fund $13,500 to cover replacing old equipment; this includes
about $7000 for equipment to let the County Legislature hook its new location to
fiber optic line.
- Replace camcorder fleet (now 10 years old) with 5 new ones @ $3000:
$15,000.
- Tripods for new camcorders: $1500.
Total $30,000.
g. She presented a Programming Analysis for 1/1/2011 to 12/31/2011, breaking
programs down by first run vs. repeat and by origin ( PEGASYS, other local,
satellite, syndicated), and an analysis of Equipment Usage by Group and Type for
the same period (editors, portable camcorders, studios).
h. The room in the PEG building formerly occupied by YNN news
programming is now free.
i. Good news from Jim Blizzard: the existing computer can be upgraded to
Windows 7, and can then work with the new Adobe Premiere and tapeless cameras.
7) Member Reports.
a. Use of staff time for Production and Transmission services. R. DePaolo has
been promised a meeting with the City Attorney shortly.
b. Producer Survey. M. Brutvan will ask producers if they'll be able to use HD
equipment.
c. Dropped channels: some digital subscribers are failing to receive channels
13, 15 and 16, because these were the last ones added to the digital network. Brutvan
has talked to the Ithaca Journal, which would be interested in a story about these
dropped channels.
d. Meeting of Town of Ithaca Rep. and Time Warner Cable. DePaolo: the
Town is considering an audit of franchise finances before the negotiations of the next
franchise.
8) Next Meeting: Tuesday Mar. 13, 2012, 4:30 p.m.
9) Adjourned 2:00.
Contact information for AOC members:
Cynthia Brock, Common Council liaison <cbrock @cityofithaca.org>
Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2 @comell.edu>
Rich DePaolo, chair <rd @richdepaolo.com>
Wies van Leuken, vice chair <pmv4 @cornell.edu>
Michael Brutvan <mbrutvan @me.com>
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 February 2012
Access Studio Coordinator Report
- Volunteer News
The PEGASYS Awards are in progress. Judging will happen within
the next week. The awards ceremony will be on March 16, in a live cablecast
on channel 13. AOC members are invited to attend.
Rochester Community TV [RCTV] held an open house on Saturday
Feb. 11. Ithaca producer Sonya Hicks and I attended. Sonya made some
contacts useful for her program, and I got some useful information about
their operations. They are a not - for - profit center, inhabiting TWC's former
offices. They supplement franchise fee funding in a number of ways: they
charge $100 -$260 per training class, $50 /year membership fee, use grants
to create staff positions for video instruction in schools, and also use grants
to fund professional equipment for staff to produce commercial video
projects. No portable equipment is available to producers, no live shows, but
there is editing and a studio. They have about 50 hours /week of facility
hours. You can find out more about them at their terrific website:
http://www.rctvl5.org/
- PEGASYS Facility
2011 PEGASYS Facility and Channel 13 Usage Reports
[attachments 1, 2]. Interesting trends: an increase in producers using their
4
own equipment for productions and a decrease in use of PEGASYS facilities
and channel time compared to 2010.
Annual Subscriber PEG Fee Report [attachment 3]. Note:
preliminary report.
Room Added. YNN has finished moving to the 517 W. State St.
building, and the room they occupied has been returned to PEGASYS. I
plan to make it the new field equipment storage and training room.
- Equipment Repair
2 camcorders damaged by producers through user negligence this
month, including our brand new digital camera. Repairs are being
researched.
- Educational and Governmental Access News
Letters inviting E and G access institutions to request funding from the
access equipment fund are being sent out this week. Letter and mailing list:
attachments 4, 5.
Time Warner is in discussion with Tompkins County about connecting
the fiber INET to its new location in the old jail building. The county will need
to fund about $17,500 in connection costs, in addition to the $7000 for end
equipment to be funded through the access equipment fund [see Jan 31,
2012 letter: attachment 6]. 1 gave Jim Blizzard a tour of the city meeting
video booth so he could get an idea of the equipment being used there, as
he prepares a plan for a video system for the county.
- 2012 Equipment Fund
An analysis of our 3 editing computers last month showed that they
can be converted from 32 -bit to 64 -bit, making it possible to upgrade them to
Windows 7 and Premiere CS5.5. This is great news, because it will make it
possible for us to have uniform editing facilities, and take advantage of
CS5.5's capability to use almost all the new file formats being developed for
consumer and prosumer cameras without file conversion. This is important
for 2 reasons — we are purchasing tapeless cameras this year, which record
only new file types, and we are seeing more and more people coming in with
digital cameras, camcorders, cell phone video and an alphabet soup of file
types, all wanting post - production facilities. This new version of Premiere is
compatible with them all.
The 2012 equipment fund [attachment 7] includes $13,500 for
"contingency funds." $7,000 was stipulated for "terminal equipment" for
Tompkins County's new INET connection [see above]. The remaining $6,500
in contingency funds will be spent on upgrades to our editing systems to run
the current version of Premiere and shelving in the new equipment storage
room.
9
February 2012
Access Studio Coordinator Report Attachment 1
For Schedule Dates: 1/1
PEGASYS Equipment Usage By Group and Type
1/1/2011 to 12/31/2011
Number of
Number of Uses
Hours of Use Dollar Value
Editing
Linear Edit 1
SVHS /Hi8, Cuts -only, Linear Editor 50
182.00
$9,100.00
Premiere Edit 1
Adobe Premiere Non - linear Editor 48
138.50
$6,925.00
Premiere Edit 2
Adobe Premiere Non - linear Editor 64
172.50
$8,625.00
Premiere Edit 3
Adobe Premiere CS3 Editor Laptop 47
6,149.00
$12,806.27
Group Totals Editing
209
6,642.00
$37,456.27
Port Cam
829
By Origin
Camcorder DVCam
Sony DSR250 DVCam Camcorder 3
2,905.00
$18,156.25
Camcorder HF300
Canon VIXIA HFM300 24
5,066.50
$10,047.93
Camcorder X10
Sony DSR PDX10 Mini DVCam Camcorder 174
20,045.50
$58,400.17
Group Totals Port Cam
201
28,017.00
$86,604.35
Studio
30
PEGASYS
Studio 1
3- camera studio, 15x34' 216
435.00
$47,850.00
Studio 2
Ministudio 38
104.50
$11,495.00
Group Totals Studio
254
539.50
$59,345.00
February 2012 Access Studio Coordinator Report
Attachment 2
PEGASYS Channel 13 Programming Analysis
For Schedule Dates: 1/1
/2011 to 12/31/2011
Number of
Hours Played
Number of Plays Different
Programs
Played
All Programming
First Run
492.22
601
601
Repeat
3344.42
4378
808
Total First Run and Repeat
3836.63
4979
829
By Origin
Other Local
First Run
23.67
26
26
Repeat
223.95
245
30
Total First Run and Repeat
247.62
271
30
PEGASYS
First Run
403.38
524
524
Repeat
2977.65
3936
691
Total First Run and Repeat
3381.03
4460
703
Satellite
First Run
26.00
4
4
Total First Run and Repeat
26.00
4
4
Syndicated
First Run
39.17
47
47
Repeat
142.82
197
87
Total First Run and Repeat
181.98
244
92
February 2012 Access Studio Coordinator Report
Attachment 3
PEG Access Equipment Spending vs. Fund Accrual During Current Franchise Period
[2004 - 2013] 0 D
M 0 M 0 Preliminary Report for 2004 - 2010 0 M 0
2004 2004
PEG Access PEG Access
Collections ($.15) $20,456.70 Equipment Spending $19,372.15
2005 2005
PEG Access PEG Access
Collections ($.15) $19,658.85 Equipment Spending $14,814.73
2006
2006
PEG Access
PEG Access
Collections ($.15)
$18,910.50
Equipment Spending
$0.00
2007
2007
PEG Access
PEG Access
Collections ($.15)
$18,807.00
Equipment Spending
$19,338.81
0 0 0
0
0 0 0 0
2008
2008
PEG Access
PEG Access
Collections ($.15)
$18,347.25
Equipment Spending
$11,749.14
2009
2009
PEG Access
PEG Access
Collections ($.15)
$17,509.95
Equipment Spending
$17,954.00
PEG Access
Equipment Spending
$3,148.13
2010
2010
PEG Access
PEG Access
Collections ($.15)
$16,593.60
Equipment Spending
$17,433.96
Total
$130,283.85
0 M 0 M
$103,810.92
0 0 0 0
Note: Peg Access collections
repr. $.15 /mo.
from the City, Town of Ithaca,
Cayuga
Heights
0
February 2012 Access Studio Coordinator Report
Attachment 4
February 15,
2012
Dear Educational and Governmental Institution Representative,
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PEGASYS, the Public, Educational and Governmental Access Television System of
Time Warner Cable, invites you consider using the educational access TV channel,
channel 16, and the government access channel 15, for programming representing
your institution. To assist you in this endeavor, we are able to offer technical
assistance and equipment funding.
For more information about this opportunity, please contact me at any of the contacts
listed below. Technical assistance is available at any time. Equipment funding is also
available. Equipment is placed on long -term loan at institutions on a contract basis,
which requires the equipment be used to produce access programming or be
returned. Applications for monies to be spent in 2013 are being accepted through
April 2012.
Cordially,
Lauren Stefanelli
PEGASYS Coordinator
Mail:
519 W. State St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
Email:
Lauren. stefanelligtwcable. com
Telephone:
607 - 272 -7272
607- 272 -7875 x. 48784
Studio location:
612 W. Green St.
Ithaca, NY
February 2012 Access Studio Coordinator Report
Attachment 7
2012 PEGASYS Capital Budget Draft
Contingency Fund
$13,500.00
Description: We have a great deal of equipment that is 8 -15 years old, and will need
replacement as it fails. In addition, many lower - priced items like cables or
headphones receive hard use and need replacement much more frequently.
In addition, the county legislature needs to transfer its signal from the old coaxial
INET to fiber. Approximately $7,000 would cover "terminal equipment" to receive
and send their television signals over fiber, and enable them to continue T.C.
Legislature programming from their current or new location. Funding for this item
would be contingent on the County moving to a location provided with fiber hook-
up. Their current location is on the fiber line, but they are considering moving.
Replace Camcorder Fleet
$15,000.00
Description: Current camera fleet is 10 years old and heavily used. 5 Units @ $3,000
each. New cameras should record to a tapeless medium, and include professional
audio and video features. Files should interface smoothly with Adobe Premiere.
Tripods for New Camcorders $1,500.00
Description: Our current fleet of tripods have been reduced by damage in the last 2
years. Only 2 units are undamaged and only 4 survive in total. Replacements we
purchased last year are suitable for smaller camcorders only. Good quality, sturdy
but not over - weight tripods are needed to accompany the new camcorders.
Total $30,000.00