HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-2016-05-02City of Ithaca Access Oversight Committee (AOC) minutes
Monday, May 2, 2016, 4:30 PM
Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY
As approved May 31, 2016
Present: chair Rich DePaolo, vice-chair Wies van Leuken, AOC members Wayles Browne,
Common Council liaison Ducson Nguyen; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli.
01. Call to Order by DePaolo at 4:45.
02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: none.
03. Public Comments: none.
04. Approval Minutes of the March 14, 2016 Meeting: 4-0 without change.
05. Access Studio Coordinator Report in writing (attached).
a. TWC's recommendations for 2017 Budget: There were no responses to Stefanelli’s outreach
to all educational institutions inviting requests for equipment. She submitted a draft budget for
2017 that will also use unused monies from the 2016 Budget. Funds will be used to upgrade the
studio from SD to High Definition. She will have itemized quotes to fine tune the draft before the
next meeting.
b. TWC's Maintenance and Repair Report (attached). Update: after some efforts to upgrade the
call-in phone (for live programming), it was restored to the way it was, because upgrading it was
too cumbersome.
Stefanelli: the old local phone number for TWC, (607) 272-3456 no longer exists; a new phone
book lists only 272-7272 and several 800 numbers. Result: the front office has no phone; the
PEG office phone gets calls from subscribers about cable service issues.
Our Time Warner Cable (TWC) manager in Buffalo brought replacement cameras for the studio.
DePaolo wrote him a thank you note on behalf of the AOC.
c. Subscriber Fee Report ($0.15/subscriber/month revenues). This report was due in
February. Stefanelli will have it at the next meeting.
d. Capital Purchase Report from TWC. This report is waiting for one final upgrade, the
bulletin board at the outside of the building, which is held up by the need for a sign permit from
the City. Stefanelli will find out why it is taking so long. She expects to have the report ready by
the next meeting.
e. 2016 Budget: the unused 2016 budget was incorporated in the 2017 budget – see 5a.
f. Quality of PEG Channels after TWC’s transition to All-Digital. AOC would like to ask a
TWC engineer for a briefing on how the signal is being handled and why the quality of the PEG
channels is so bad. This may need previous approval of David Whalen, TWC's Government
Relations manager. Stefanelli will inquire. DePaolo will also raise this during his next phone call
with Whalen.
06. Member Reports
a. AOC Budget Recommendations for 2017 – AOC approved the draft recommendations.
Final approval will be at the next meeting. See 5a.
b. Vacancies and Term Expirations - update. For the City of Ithaca: expression of interest but
no commitment. For the Village of Cayuga Heights: van Leuken can serve in her present
mandate until reappointed; she will check with the Village for an update on her appointment.
c. AOC's Capital Purchase Report to City. This report is waiting for TWC’s report – see
5d.
d. Fourth Quarter/2015 Franchise Fee Report from City: AOC received the 2015/4th
quarter worksheet from the City of Ithaca during the meeting.
e. Home Page – discussion. See Access Studio Coordinator's report under "PR / Outreach".
f. Annual Report on PEGASYS’ Accomplishments - discussion. AOC should write one
covering 2015 for board members and maybe other interested parties. Stefanelli will provide
statistics on hours of programming and usage and put something together by the next meeting.
07. Old Business.
a. Franchise Agreement: no reports
b. Charter/TWC/Brighthouse Network merger: has gained approvals at several of the
necessary stages.
c. PEGASYS' Access Rules: During the conference call DePaolo asked Whalen about the
question of indemnification by producers. Whalen will check with lawyers.
DePaolo is also waiting for an opinion from the City Attorney--will follow up on the matter.
During Stefanelli and DePaolo’s conference call with Whalen he was asked about the use of
capital money for websites and archiving. If not possible: AOC discussed that producers
themselves might be interested to kick in small amounts for the site.
DePaolo further asked Whalen for info on Stefanelli's compensation so as to be able to determine
the opening hours of the studio. She was to send more info to Whalen. Whalen acknowledged
that the time she spends programming the channel (“Transmission Services”) should not be paid
for by the PEG portion of the Franchise Fee. These funds should be used for staff time dedicated
to Production Services.
08. New Business: none.
09. Next meeting: Tuesday, May 31, 4:30 to consider the 2017 budget proposal.
10. Adjournment 6:10.
Notes by W. Browne as AOC secretary.
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Contact information for AOC members:
City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2@cornell.edu>.
City of Ithaca: Ducson Nguyen, Common Council liaison 2016 <dnguyen@cityofithaca.org>.
City of Ithaca: member TBA.
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>
May 2016
Access Studio Coordinator Report
- Building Improvements
Our call-in phone is in the process of being changed to a digital line, temporarily disconnecting
our call-in line.
- Equipment Maintenance and Repair: Updates of items out for service in March
Our broken studio camera 1 has been replaced by a camera from another TWC system.
There were 3 cameras, of identical make and model as ours, made available to us, and we
unwittingly destroyed the first 2 when we plugged them into our camera 1’s camera control unit.
For our last chance, my boss brought down the replacement camera’s own control unit, and we
now have a successful replacement camera 1, giving us a 3-camera studio again.
Our 2 studio camera dollies that had broken locks were repaired and are back in service.
Our broken field tripod was repaired and returned, and we now have a couple extra parts in
case the same damage happens again.
- Equipment Maintenance and Repair: New Items
One of our edit laptops has been having power problems and is now off-line. I have a
new battery on order for it, which we hope will solve the problem.
- 2015 Equipment Fund Update
The last item on our 2015 equipment fund, the building sign, has moved forward, but not
as far as hoped. The venders got their deposit, but they did not make the sign. They applied for
a sign permit with the City of Ithaca and only when they get that will they make the sign. So far,
they have not received the permit. The 2015 equipment fund report will be provided next
month, when the sign is completed and I have this last invoice.
- 2016 Equipment Fund: Studio Upgrade to HD
See attached.
- Institutional Access
Ithaca City School District was again unable to do its live meeting, due to another disruption
of the INET line. They are the last INET site using the old coaxial INET line. The other
institutions all use new, dedicated fiber optic lines. Evaluation still ongoing.
- PR / Outreach
I have discovered that our free website does allow embedded videos (!), provided they are
posted on either YouTube or Facebook. Accordingly, I have added quite a few videos to the
PEGASYS website, as suggested by the AOC at their last meeting. It is a definite improvement.
Our PEGASYS Awards were held on March 11. Our 4 highest-scoring programs were
submitted at Time Warner’s expense to the national Hometown Awards. In addition, several
producers have submitted shows on their own, so we have a good crop of entrants this year.
2016 PEGASYS Capital Budget Draft: May 2016
Project: Upgrade current main PEGASYS studio to digital HD
Justification: I proposed in March that our priority for equipment improvement should be the
upgrade of our current studio from SD [standard definition, 720x480 pixels] analog to HD [high
definition, 1280x720 pixels or higher] digital. The reason is video quality. Most viewers now
have 40-60” televisions, designed to show off HD pictures. SD pictures, which look fine on a 13-
19” TV, do not look good blown up to that size, because they do not have enough detail in the
original image. But SD pictures that started out as HD, with lots more detail to start with, look
much, much better, even after being converted to SD. Most of the basic cable channels are now
producing in HD, even if they still have an SD channel. So there is a big gap in quality between
channel 13 and surrounding channels. If we are to have images that appear to be good quality
to attract viewers, we must improve the studio quality to HD. We have upgraded our field
cameras and our editing computers to HD, and we have renovated our building. Upgrading our
studio is the last step to complete making PEGASYS a facility capable of professional
production quality that will help keep us relevant for the future.
Our existing studio equipment all dates from 1989-1995. Almost none of the elements in it are
able to be fixed or replaced any more. The problem with a digital HD conversion of the studio is
that all of the video must be done together. The good news is that prices have come down over
the years, and that we have saved $50,000 of our equipment funds for this specific purpose. I
have 2 venders who are preparing proposals for us that will include HD cameras, camera
remote control, video switching, titling, monitors, digital recording and digital media playback for
this budget.
Total $50,000.00