Public Access Television Committee Minutes July 15th 2015

Mendocino TV under contract with the City of Fort Bragg
Meeting Minutes
Mendocino Coast Media Volunteer Committee
Wednesday July 15, 2015 6:00 PM Mendocino TV Studio 303 N. Main Street Suite B

Meeting Called to Order Terrence Vaughn called the meeting to order at 6:05
Roll Call Present: Mike Cimolino, Doug Hammerstrom, Chuck Wilcher, Derek Hoyle, Terrence Vaughn, Marianne McGee
Absent: Jane Vartanian (excused), Dan Gjerde
Approval of Minutes
Minutes of previous meeting were emailed out to members.
Public Comment on Non-agenda items
No Public in attendance
Conduct of Business:

1. Terry gave overview of the software and systems he has been researching and testing. He tested the two Softron products but while the regular program is beautiful, it doesn’t have a calendar and would have to be loaded daily. Their OnTheAir Manager system has a drag and drop calendar and costs $3500 per node. Its drag and drop,to build programming that fits our needs without going really expensive. We need to buy the dongal (like a license key) so can switch machines quickly. It doesn’t require a MAC and can be run from anywhere.
2. Terry wants to do a soft opening for a month, with a crawl running under it to get feedback from viewers.
3. He has ordered other software for it Fine Cut Pro 10 which cost $299
4. He found the free Handbrake software to rip and encode very quickly so no there will be no cost to rip any content for anyone, regardless of whether or not they are Comcast customers.
5. Doug suggested donation can although we don’t know what the mechanism would be for donations. Terry suggested that people may want to put donations toward a potential nonprofit to operate public access television.
6. Terry does not think the Footlighters studio should be shut down or disconnected and the Committee members agreed with him.
7. Terry reconfirmed with the Committee that this year’s contract is to only light up one channel this year.
8. The Committee discussed that if there was a place to start another site this year, the FBPD would be ideal. The program software also has the ability to do emergency warnings, so this could be helpful.
9. We needed a decision made as to broadcast in 4 x 3 or 16.9 aspect ratio (anamorphic), although on really old (4:3) TV’s it will look squished. It does look beautiful in HD. We decided to use 16:9 as normal aspect and squish 16:9 to anamorphic on 4:3 TV’s.
   Since we have little very 4:3 content and all new TVs are 16:9 we will abandon the idea of cropping 16:9 to fit 4:3.
10. There was a discussion regarding content. Terry talked about Mendocino TV shows including The Shift, Timberwolves Football and City Council. There will be blocks running in early morning and during the day.
11. New ideas brainstormed include tech shows, soccer semi-finals and other local sports.
12. Mendocino TV does have some old cameras to let people use. The Footlighters cameras are all tape based which is problematic, so Terry is not going to buy them as that is old technology. Iphones work well; he used one to livestream the recent meeting at the police station.
13. In reference to a recent forum about Body Worn Cameras during which Mendocino TV broadcast live from an iphone, Terry suggested Ft Bragg Police could have body cameras broadcast live to a dispatch system and bypass the storage and chain of evidence issues facing them.
14. As the new JVC cameras will not work as they are (15 frames per second) Terry suggested using the JVC cameras for surveillance in other places while reinstalling the old cameras that are compatible with the broadcast standards (NTSC).
15. This Committee has approved to purchase the equipment that Terry has recommended. Mike and Doug thought because they are the City’s Ad Hoc Committee, the purchasing should be able to proceed quickly without holding another meeting, just direct staff to do it.
16. Derek saw Dan who apologized but was unable to attend this meeting tonight.
17. The Committee briefly discussed Content & Guidelines. There are about 4000 Coastal Comcast customers. We tossed out the idea of blocks of programming and when they would be appropriate. Such as High School Sports on weekends, old City Council Meetings between 12 and 6 AM, What do we anticipate will be our prime time hours and when are the least watched hours.
18. Terry prefers delivery of content through downloading from a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo via computer but he will accept content in any form.
19. Chuck wanted clarification about the role of the committee & Marianne will send him the original information for the City.
20. Chuck wants to keep meetings to 1 hour, with agendas etc

Next meeting August 19 at 6 PM
Matters from Committee/Staff No additional matters
Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 7:27.
Next meeting is August 19 at 6:00 PM at Mendocino TV.