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Home My WebLink AboutMN-CABLE-2017-11-07 1 City of Ithaca Cable Access Oversight Committee Meeting Minutes TUESDAY, November 7, 2017 at 5 PM (as approved Feb. 6, 2018) Meeting Room, PEGASYS Access Center, 519 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY Present: chair Rich DePaolo, vice-chair Wies van Leuken, Wayles Browne, Common Council liaison Ducson Nguyen, Sue Perlgut; studio manager Lauren Stefanelli; member of the public Nzuki Wagner (Ithaca High School student observing the meeting) 01. Call to Order by van Leuken, 5:10. 02. Agenda Additions and/or Deletions: item on the loss of SCOLA news broadcasts added to New Business. 03. Public Comments: none. 04. Approval Minutes of the August 1, 2017 Meeting: approved as submitted 4-0. 05. Access Studio Coordinator Report: presented in writing [attached]. a. Substitute Staffing. Stefanelli reported that Jim Hofecker subbed 2 days a week while she was on vacation, which worked out well for all parties. b. Transmission Services. No reports. c. Maintenance and Repair Report. See attached. d. Studio Upgrade – update. See attached. ComTech has been helpful in resolving problems. The promised training for the Studio Manager required a modem to be installed; the modem has been in place since May but no training has yet been provided. 06. Member Reports a. Usage Fees – Annual Review of impact, collection, levels and use. The fees collected have been going into an envelope and not into an account. The AOC discussed amending the June 13, 2006 resolution to allow a range of uses for the fee money at the next meeting. b. Eligibility Rules for Producers vs. Residency in Franchise Area. The AOC confirmed that the 2003 Franchise Agreement at 15.6.4., requires all residents of Tompkins County who use the Studio to pay the Usage Fee set by the AOC. c. 2018 Budget information to Municipalities - report. This has been given to all three municipalities: the City of Ithaca, the Village of Cayuga Heights, and the Town of Ithaca. d. Publicity and Outreach Ad-Hoc Committee - report. Publicity and Outreach will be put on the agenda of the first meeting in 2018. e. Communications RE quality of PEG cablecasts. In response to questions about quality of programs, DePaolo received a reply from Spectrum director of government affairs Chris Mueller dated Aug. 9, 2017 [relevant parts attached below], claiming that engineers had investigated and found no issues, even though the Committee has found that problems persist. 2 f. Franchise Fee Reports from City, Town and Village. Van Leuken: it's too early to expect reports for the 3rd Quarter. We have Q2 but not Q1 for the Town (DePaolo will ask for it); neither Q1 nor Q2 for the City; only Q1 for the Village. 07. Old Business a. Franchise Agreement. No report. 08. New Business. SCOLA is a non-profit organization in McClelland, Iowa (http://www.scola.org) that rebroadcasts news programming from many countries of the world, mostly in the original languages. The cable service has carried SCOLA Channel One on one of its channels (most recently channel 21) at least since the 19 90s, and many foreign-born Ithacans and members of the language teaching and learning community have greatly appreciated it. At the beginning of November, SCOLA shifted from distributing the programming via satellite to an internet-based method. Spectrum has not yet caught up with the shift, though negotiations are said to be in progress. Channel 21 now merely shows a slide "Programming on this network is no longer available." The AOC would like to see this program reinstated. 09. Next meeting. Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 5:00 PM. 10. Adjournment 6:30. Contact information for AOC members: City of Ithaca: Wayles Browne, secretary <ewb2@cornell.edu>. City of Ithaca: Ducson Nguyen, Common Council liaison 2016-17 <dnguyen@cityofithaca.org>. City of Ithaca: member Sue Perlgut <sperlgut@gmail.com>. Town of Ithaca: Rich DePaolo, chair <rd@richdepaolo.com>, <RDePaolo@town.ithaca.ny.us>. 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@charter.com> =============================================================== From: "Mueller, Chris" <Chris.Mueller@charter.com> Subject: RE: Fw: RE: Ithaca Access Oversight Committee- Outstanding Requests/Issues Dear Mr. DePaolo, Our engineers reviewed the three PEG channels you raised concerns about, and I note the following: • They have not found any issues with signal strength. There isn’t any appreciable difference in the RF signal levels on the PEG channels compared to other services. Occasionally channels can be affected by ingress from loose fittings or a bad drop cables, and those issues are correctable by our field technicians. • Our engineers are not unaware of any issues regarding intermittent missing channels. Please identify any dates and times and the location of any purported incident, and we will look into the service at those addresses. 3 In regards to the APP question, we do not include the Lockport PEG channels on the APP. Also, the Spectrum APP is not part of our basic service functionality. The APP does not permit Pay Per View, transactional VOD or DVR functionality. The APP is still in development and is not meant as a replacement for set top boxes for our standard video offerings. There are no current plans to add the PEG channels on the APP. We are currently reviewing the franchise document submitted and we will be back to you soon. Chris L. Mueller | Director, Government Affairs | 585.756.1326 (w) 100 Town Centre Drive, Suite 100 | Rochester, NY 14623 From: Rich DePaolo [mailto:RDePaolo@town.ithaca.ny.us]  Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2017 8:44 PM To: Mueller, Chris <Chris.Mueller@charter.com> Cc: "" <mayormyrick@cityofithaca.org>; "" <BGoodman@town.ithaca.ny.us>; "" <lwoodard@cayuga- heights.ny.us>; "" <attorney@cityofithaca.org>; City of Ithaca Common Council <council@cityofithaca.org>; Paul M Van Leuken <pmv4@cornell.edu>; Sue Perlgut <sperlgut@gmail.com>; E Wayles Browne <ewb2@cornell.edu>; Stefanelli, Lauren M <Lauren.Stefanelli@charter.com>; Ducson Nguyen <DNguyen@cityofithaca.org> Subject: Re: Fw: RE: Ithaca Access Oversight Committee- Outstanding Requests/Issues Dear Mr. Mueller- Thank you for addressing issues related to our faulty entry door. It is a much-needed upgrade, and we appreciate your help in facilitating the fix. Other matters, however, remain unaddressed. It has now been 8 months since I wrote to you in my capacity as Chair of the Access Oversight Committee, related to ongoing picture quality issues on PEG channels. The Committee has come to understand that there are known and solvable technical issues that are responsible for the noticeable deterioration of the quality of programming that occurs somewhere between our facility and the end user. Likewise, kindly respond to my request for a technical explanation as to why PEG programming can not be included on the Spectrum App, as is currently being done in other franchise areas. In addition, since the App is being included by Spectrum as part of "basic cable" functionality, and PEG stations are required by the franchise as part of Basic Cable, the Committee feels that Charter is required to make this functionality available to basic cable subscribers in our area. Please explain. Finally, it is my understanding that, in addition to your role in Government Relations for Charter, you are also in charge of franchise negotiations for our area. Assuming that is correct, you are well aware that a consortium of municipalities in Tompkins County submitted a term sheet for review in Novermber, 2016, in an attempt to reconcile the many differences between the draft franchise agreement originally submitted by the consortium, and the response by (then) Time Warner. It is inexcusable that negotiations involving multiple municipalities could be shelved indefinitely, without a response of any kind. Please explain the reason for the delay. Regards, Rich DePaolo 4 November 2017 Access Studio Coordinator Report  Studio Upgrade The camera tally light package has been installed and is working fine. The audio delay has been installed and live shows no longer have asynchronous audio. The 4th camera, which was repaired under warranty, was fixed and returned. While it was gone, the mount fell off the wall, so the vender built a very sturdy wooden mount to augment the metal mount, and used a stud finder to make sure it will not fall down again. The digital down-converter that converts video for playback from HD to SD failed. The company simply gave us a new one and installed it. Com Tech still needs to complete a few things. The wire less feature, allowing Broadcast Pix to be controlled from an in -house wireless device, does not work and they have no explanation for it. We have not received the training we paid $1000 for. And we have another audio synch problem that they didn’t plan fo r and I only recognized after the audio delay was installed. The camera video is delayed by Broadcast Pix, requiring an audio delay to delay the sound by the same amount. However the Broadcast Pix also plays video clips. And these are put out of synch by t he audio delay! I requested advice by the vender about how this should be solved. Their turn -key install certainly did not allow for this problem. The old studio equipment has mostly been disposed of, to producers who have home video studios of legacy equipment. Only the old cameras and their accessories have not yet found a home. Newark Valley School did not want them after all.  PEGASYS Personnel Jim Hofecker did a great job subbing for me at PEGASYS and at City Council meetings while I was on vacation.  PEGASYS Equipment Maintenance and Repair Our JVC camcorder was returned from being repaired. Our in-house engineer managed to fix the broken mic cable for one of our wireless mics, saving us the need to purchase a $225 item.  Cablecasting Policies A Charter rep has been assigned to inventory and try to make uniform PEG policies and paperwork in their various cable systems. Our current paperwork still says Time Warner. Aside from updating forms, producers submitting programs in file format will be able to upload their files to a dedicated server instead of bringing in their hard drives. We have one test producer who has been given instructions for using this method. When testing is complete, it will be introduced to all producers.