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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2015-07-06 1 Access Oversight Committee (AOC) minutes Monday, July 6, 2015, 4:30 PM Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY As approved August 31, 2015 Present: chair Rich DePaolo, AOC members Wayles Browne, vice-chair Wies van Leuken, liaison from Common Council (City of Ithaca) J.R. Clairborne, (later) Michael Brutvan; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli. 01. Call to Order: 4:40 by DePaolo. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: none. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval Minutes of the May 4, 2015 Meeting: approved with two small changes 4-0. 05. Municipal Approvals of 2016 Budget: Clairborne will submit the AOC’s 2016 Budget Recommendations to the City of Ithaca Common Council at their July and August Meetings. 06. Access Studio Coordinator Report. Ithaca College is converting to all HD (High Definition) TV service. DePaolo: Can PEG broadcast HD television? Stefanelli: No; IC will have to feed programming to PEG in SD (Standard Definition). a. TWC's Amended Recommendations for 2015 Budget. AOC discussed the amended budget (dated June 10, 2015) and approved it with "quotes pending" for the DVD players. AOC also expressed support for Stefanelli getting a further DVD player (or several), because they are an essential piece of equipment in the playback room. Clairborne asked about the line in the budget "a Windows 7 Dell machine". Stefanelli: That's what we need for editing the HD footage that many people are now shooting on the cameras. A resolution was moved by Van Leuken, seconded by DePaolo, to approve amended budget as attached below. It passed with a vote 4-0. 2015 Budget (Equipment Fund) June 10, 2015 Cost Vender Quantity each total Building Renovation Marshall 1 Spackle and paint main office areas, replace trim, outlet covers, $3,870.00 carpet, including labor Marshall 1 Replace bulletin board with fabric note boards $500.00 Marshall 1 Paint all walls, door trim, in main area, office, lobby, bathrooms $8,640.00 including labor Main Office Wall-Mounted Monitor B&H 1 Sony R510A Series 60"Full HD Smart LED TV Black #SOKDL60RS1A $798.00 $798.00 B&H 1 Sanus Wall Mount for 51-80"TV B&H #SAVLT5B1 $83.37 $83.37 B&H 1 Pearstone HDMI-HDMI cable 10 BH# PEHDA110 $10.95 $10.95 2 Playback * B&H 2 Tascam DV-D01U Rack Mountable DVD Player BH# TADVD01U $369.99 $739.98 Portable B&H 1 GoPro's Handlebar/Seatpost Pole Mount BH# GORH $19.99 $19.99 Editing Dell 2 Dell desktop computer XPS 8700 SE version with windows 7, intel i7 processor, $1,838.23 $3,676.46 16GB of RAM and 1TB hard disk with a 27" monitor included 4 Year phone support / accidental damage warranty Studio Marshall 1 Replace 12'x14'studio carpet $873.00 $873.00 Subtotal $19,211.75 * NOTE: this quote is not final. B&H notified us the players are discontinued, so I am looking for an alternative. b. TWC's Maintenance and Repair Report. See “Equipment and Facility Maintenance and Repair ” in attached Coordinator’s Report. c. PEGASYS’ Facility Improvements – Progress Report: The contractor Leigh Marshall, will be meeting with Stefanelli this week to set a start date. d. PEGASYS’ Front Entrance Repairs – Progress Report. See “Building Improvements” in attached Coordinator’s Report. e. TWC’s Semi-Annual Usage Fees Report. A total of $220.00 was collected during the first half of 2015. With the remaining balance of $50 from 2014 this provides $270.00 to hire a substitute during Stefanelli’s vacation. See “PEGASYS Fees 2015” in attached Coordinator’s Report. 07. Member Reports a. 2014 and First Quarter 2015 Franchise Fee Report from City. Worksheets with these figures are still needed from the City. Clairborne mentions that TCCOG (Tompkins County Council of Governments) wrote a letter to the anticipated merger partner of TWC [namely Charter Communications], similar to the letter that was sent to Comcast last year at the time that a Comcast-TWC merger was being discussed. b. Publicity: for next meeting. 08. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement: DePaolo: the negotiating committee received a response from TWC; in it most of the items that AOC wanted are dismissed. The AOC gave DePaolo a list if items it considered essential for inclusion in the Agreement. 09. New Business. AOC regrets the loss of Steve Cass, video teacher and Audio and Visual Media Engineer in the 3 Ithaca City School District, but is not in a position to influence the superintendent in the direction of keeping the AV Media Engineer position. We were sorry to hear that the Ithaca Times show (its reporters discussing the news) ended at the beginning of June. 10. Next meeting: 4:30, Monday, August 31, 2015. 11. Adjournment 5:57. 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> City of Ithaca: J. R. Clairborne, Common Council liaison 2014-5 <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> PEGASYS Fees 2015 (Agenda Item 6e) Account 3520-31-9900-49101 Municipality Jan-June 2015 Status Jul-Dec 2015 Status Caroline $40.00 PAID Newfield $40.00 PAID Danby $40.00 PAID Organization $100.00 PAID Subtotal $220.00 Total Fees 2015 First Half $220.00 4 July 2015 Access Studio Coordinator Report - Hometown Awards 2 entries from Ithaca are winners in the 2015 Hometown Media Awards. Both of them are from Ithaca College: Newswatch and their ictv.org website. ICTV will be sending both the producer of Newswatch and the webmaster of ictv.org to Pasadena in August to receive their awards in person at the Alliance for Community Media’s award ceremony. - Building Improvements (Agenda Item 6c) Our contractor has completed the front entrance drainage and clean-up project. A drainage pipe goes directly from the repaired gutter into the storm drain. The drainage pipes are covered by a new garden bed and retaining wall. The ivy was removed from the wall and from our sign. Still to come are new plantings in the garden bed and some further cleanup of the concrete stanchions in our entranceway, which will be done by our exterior maintenance team. - Equipment and Facility Maintenance and Repair (Agenda Item 6a)  STUDIO: Our studio character generator was shipped out for repair on June 22. As noted in my April report, this unit caused our studio to lose synch and disabled several live shows. It also sometimes does not boot, so I hope a power supply problem can be repaired and put it back on line soon. Meanwhile, a loaner character generator was installed; the loaner is the same model, allowing producers to work without interruption until ours is fixed.  STUDIO: One of our studio camera cables failed on June 23. Panasonic, manufacturer of our studio cameras and cables [purchased in 2001], no longer makes them. However, they found a company that can repair it. We are sending the cable out to California for repair this week.  PORTABLE: Our JVC field camera with the wobbly viewfinder was repaired and returned to service on June 22. Another unit which had been manhandled by a producer and also had a wobbly viewfinder as a result was sent out for repair. This one will be covered under warranty.  PORTABLE: One of our laptops was reported not working. Jim Blizzard looked at it and discovered that some “malware” had been uploaded from the internet. He was able to clear the problem. All producers using field editors are being warned not to use them on the internet.  PLAYBACK: Both of our playback DVD players died in June, and no electrical storm was involved this time. Because the DVD players are on 24/7, I think their power supply eventually just gives out after a few years. Turns out these units are also no longer manufactured, and we are investigating alternatives. As I have a DVD conversion utility, PEGASYS can continue accepting programs on DVD. - Institutional Access  Ithaca College has shut down its lake cam for the summer. ICTV is converting to all-HD in its studios and playback facilities, and is off-line until the conversion is complete. I am told it may delay the start of the Fall season of ICTV.  I have been informed that Steve Cass has left Ithaca High School. Their media class produced lot of programming in 2014-15, including a bi-weekly IHS TV show, a dozen specials, and a series of sports events. The future of the program is now in question. 2015 Equipment and Facilities Fund (Agenda Items 6a and 6c)  As per an email I send the AOC a few weeks ago, I updated the 2015 spending plan to include upgraded computers [as per AOC recommendation] and replacement playback DVD players [although I have found only 1 such player so far]. The painting project has been approved. The contractor Leigh Marshall, will be meeting with me this week to set a start date.