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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2013-09-16Access Oversight Committee (AOC) minutes MONDAY, September 16,2013,4:30 PM Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green St., Ithaca, NY (as approved Nov. 4, 2013) Present: AOC members Wayles Browne, chair Rich DePaolo, vice -chair Wies van Leuken, Mike Brutvan; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli. Liaison from Common Council (City of Ithaca) J.R. Clairborne phoned -- delayed due to travel. 01. Call to Order by R. DePaolo at 4:42. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: none. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval Minutes of the August 5, 2013 meeting. Minutes approved with one change, 4 to 0. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report a. TWC's Maintenance and Repair Report b. Status of 2013 Budget's purchases. Stefanelli: we have quotes for the 2013 Equipment Fund (a/k/a Capital Budget)'s revised budget (4/1/13), we have no Purchase Authorizations yet. Van Leuken: what is causing the delay? Stefanelli: the approval process was recently changed over to a different section of TWC and I have limited information on the new process. DePaolo: will contact Time Warner Cable (TWC) person in charge of government relations David Whalen once again about this. c. Other reports. Discussion of PEG Channels on the Cable System. Van Leuken: since cablecasting of PEG channels went digital, there is a problem with programs with fast motion. Stefanelli: there have been occasional difficulties with some local channels, possibly connected with an extra layer of compression while they are being digitized in Syracuse. Fast motion sometimes triggers squares showing up on the screen. AOC asks if there's something producers could do to minimize this. Brutvan: reduce the frame rate? Stefanelli: making a DVD is the first compression, making an mpg file = 2nd compression, digitizing = 3rd. MiniDV is a better medium. Will ask TWC engineer for advice to give to producers. 06. Member Reports a. Quarterly Franchise Fee Report from City, Town and Village. Van Leuken: The City's Franchise Fee Report for 2012 and 1 st & 2nd quarter of 2013 are due as well as the Town's Report for 1 st & 2nd quarter of 2013. DePaolo got a hard copy of the Town's report and will scan it for Van Leuken's records. Van Leuken would like to get The Town and City's Franchise Fee Worksheets automatically, as she does from the Village mayor and clerk. b. Migration PEG channels - report. DePaolo received a reply from David Whalen: Whalen will ask to have slides shown on channels 13, 15, and 16 with information about how to switch to the digital adapter box in order to receive the new digital channels 97 -3, -4 and -5. c. Tompkins County's Funding Request [for equipment to use in telecasting county meetings after the Legislature's move to the Old Courthouse a.k.a. Governor Daniel D. Tompkins Building] - report. DePaolo has found no records of any itemized request from the County for "end equipment ", as requested by the AOC on August 22, 2012, to activate the placeholder of $7,000.00 first included in the 2012 Budget and then in the revised 2013 Budget (4/13). Stefanelli: it had been approved by AOC several years in a row. DePaolo: But County Administrator Joe Mareane, after the initial discussion, never submitted the request he promised in his Email to the AOC. Stefanelli explains 'end equipment': it turns analog audio /video (in the meeting room) into digital (to feed into the fiber line). DePaolo: for our next meeting, Stefanelli should go through her archives, and AOC will do the same, to determine when TWC manager Thomas Doheny proposed spending AOC budget money on the County end equipment. DePaolo is concerned about setting a precedent for spending money without AOC's direct authorization. d. Review of PEGASYS' Policies and Procedures (Stefanelli's proposed new policy document). Van Leuken likes the beginning of the old document and the second half of the new one. She would like explicit mention of PEGASYS and local municipalities. The AOC needs to be mentioned. So does training. She finds the new document less accessible and less welcoming to new producers. Stefanelli: the intention was to have one part the same for all access centers in the region, one part tailored to the different production facilities (Syracuse, Cortland, Ithaca). Van Leuken will propose a hybrid draft, send it to Stefanelli and bring it to the next meeting. 07. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement. DePaolo: the next meeting of municipalities working on the upcoming agreement will be Sept. 18. They have had the proposal reviewed by one more consultant. b. Equipment Recipients' reports. DePaolo has not yet been able to inquire at the Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS). 08. New Business. None. 09. Next meeting: 4:30, Monday, November 4. 10. Adjournment at 6:20. Notes by W. Browne as AOC secretary. Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2 @cornell.edu> City of Ithaca: Michael Brutvan <mbrutvan @me.com> 3 City of Ithaca: J. R. Clairborne, Common Council liaison 2013 - <jclairbo@cityofithaca.org> Town of Ithaca: Rich DePaolo, chair <rd@richdepaolo.com> Village of Cayuga Heights: Wies van Leuken, vice chair <pmv4@cornell.edu> 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 September 2013 Access Studio Coordinator Report - PEGASYS Awards Our 2 new Hometown Awards are hanging on our Wall of Fame. According to a notice sent by one of the producers, Jurden Alexander, one of these winning entries has been accepted by the Social Justice Film Festival [attached]. - PEGASYS Hours I will be on vacation for a couple weeks in October. Mike Cederstrom will have office hours 2 days per week, using usage fee funds, to keep PEGASYS running. Mike and another backup staff - person, Al Abrahams, will take care of City meetings and October budget meetings. - Equipment Repair One of our VIXIA camcorders was dropped and broken during an event in August, when the producer tripped on the sidewalk and fell forward onto her face, splitting her lip. It does not look like it can be repaired, but I am having an engineer look at it to be sure. - PEG Channels on the Cable System We are continuing to collect feedback from and provide information to customers and producers about the transition to all- digital versions of PEG channels. - Institutional Access Tompkins County Legislature has had several live meetings from its new location, and is still working out technical difficulties with lighting, sound and other issues. ICTV will be having a late start this year, starting their season on September 22. - PEGASYS Capital The 2013 budget was been submitted for purchasing in July, including additional items requested by AOC member Mike Brutvan. I do not yet have information about when we can expect the equipment to be received. H Attachment: Social Justice Film Festival From: Jody Cole < IodyC�socialjusticefilmfestival .orq> To: "jurdenalexander(a�yahoo.com" <jurdenalexander(a�yahoo.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 8:56 PM Subject: Social Justice Gallery Program Let me begin by expressing my thanks for submitting your work to the Social Justice Film Festival. The quality and number of submissions we have received since May has exceeded all our expectations, and we are heartened to see a vibrant community of engaged filmmakers using the medium of film to advocate for causes that need more attention. It has been apparent for a while now that we would be making some very tough decisions in programming the 2013 festival. We have had many programming meets and discussions, voting, considering, and re- watching films to reach a consensus among our judges. Every film we saw was made with care and passion about important issues and causes, and although we have made the festival as large a platform as possible, we knew we wouldn't be able to find a space for everything. Even some films that made us cheer or cry, or that become personal favorites, were not able to be included in the main program this year. At the Rainier Valley Cultural Center venue, we are organizing a gallery program that will run for the duration of the festival. I'm excited about this program because it allows audiences to interact with shorter and more experimental films on their own terms, much the same way that a viewer can take their own time with a piece in an art gallery. I feel your film The Death Penalty - from the outside in would be a great fit for this program, and I want it to be able to reach our audiences. With your consent, I would like to program the film for our gallery program. Thank you again, and I look forward to your response, -Jody Cole Jody Cole - Curator, Social Justice Film Festival 206.427.2710 1 www .socialjusticefilmfestival.org https: / /www.facebook.com/SociaIJusticeFilmFestival