5.0.a. SWCSR 09-08-2016 ,
Sherburne Wright Cable Commission
Equipment Report
September 8th, 2016
VieBit Upgrade
We have finished upgrading to VieBit, the Video on Demand service in the following cities: Big
Lake, Buffalo, Elk River, Dassel and SWTV. Now that the summer production events are over
we will be moving on to the remaining cities.
The upgrade has been very popular and has improved the look of program playback
dramatically. The upgrade has taken a little longerp
then expected as some cities have used the
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opportunity to improve their city web page links to the service and also weed out old meetings.
I encourage you to look at the following cities to see how it looks:
https://biglake.viebit.com/ and https://dassel.viebit.com/
Searching for a video is quick and easy and the site is now easily searchable. Cities are able to
add searchable links to their council meetings and other programs and posting a program or
meeting to the site has become much easier for city staff.
It's important to note that Leightronix is not charging a fee to do this and they haven't changed
their rates. They have told me that they are still adding features and in fact are implementing
some that we have suggested.
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SWTV at Spectrum High School in Elk River
School Outreach
We have been invited numerous times over the years to meet with students and show them our
production trailer and offer training or information about video production careers.
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We were recently invited to speak to over 200 students at Spectrum Charter High School in Elk
River. We only had a very short time to meet with all the students but we devised a plan to meet
with all of them by breaking them into 3 groups.
We had them go between 3 sessions that highlighted career opportunities in video production,
how to operate a camera and a tour of the trailer. The school was very happy with our efforts and
sent us a very nice thank you letter. They have asked us to do this again in the future. We hope to
create future volunteers with this outreach as well as SWTV channel viewers.
Nexus HD Upgrade
The first 2 of the Nexus HD channel playback controllers that you approved at the last meeting
are due to be delivered on September 18th. These two systems will take about 2 weeks to install
and a few months to re-format all the archived programming we have. We will begin to copy
over all existing HD programs and also add all past SD programs. The system will play both HD
and SD formats and also cablecast and stream in both formats.
Spring and Summer Production Highlights
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Summer Productions and Movie in the Park Events
We have had an incredibly busy summer with both trailer and camera productions along with
Movie in the Park events. In spite of several rain cancellations we covered a very large amount
of events.
Our production values keep getting better and better as staff gets used to the upgraded
equipment. This has resulted in a more professional look to programs playing back on the
channel. It will only improve as we incorporate some of the other upgrades to the playback
system and trailer.
Mark will offer specific details about the numerous productions.
Trailer File Recorder
The new production trailer file recorders you approved have been ordered and will be delivered
in the middle of fall. We are already making plans for the install in the trailer and hope to begin
using them for our late fall and winter productions.
We are really excited to use these as they will really help our production and playback process.
Volunteer Appreciation and Outreach
We are planning on holding another volunteer appreciation event this winter. We have not held
one in over 5 years and we are due to recognize all the efforts of those who volunteer their time
to help us. We want to do something this year that's different from past events and we will bring
the idea to you at our next meeting for approval.
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As an example of the time that volunteer's give to us: The events in Dassel on the Labor Day
holiday took up almost 12 hours. While we did buy them a really good lunch, it should be noted
that it can be very hard to get people to give up their time during a major holiday weekend and
we really want to recognize those that have worked so hard to help us cover the community
events over the years.
A collection of photos from a few installs this spring and summer
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Equipment Repairs, Upgrades and Miscellaneous Notes
Buffalo - Repair of UltraNexus and upgrade to VieBit, multiple trailer shoots and movie in the
park events
Elk River-Upgrade to VieBit, Conference room install, Replaced Sympodium in Council
Chambers, helped City Hall, Fire department and Wastewater Treatment with cable issues,
camcorder repair, computer repairs in conference rooms, multiple trailer shoots, school outreach
event
Big Lake—Conference room upgrade, Lobby Monitor replacement, VieBit and streaming
upgrade, multiple trailer shoots and movie in the park events
Cokato - multiple trailer shoots and movie in the park events, Helped museum with cable issues
Monticello - Service calls for channel outages, audio issues, audio repairs, presentation lecterns,
meeting room equipment repairs. trailer shoots and movie in the park events
Delano - Service calls for channel outages. trailer shoots and movie in the park events
Rockford -Playback Rack issues,Nexus issues, TriCaster service call, shoots and movie events
Dassel - VieBit Upgrade, Control Room Upgrade, Staff training, work on Sympodium
workstation upgrade,trailer shoots
Watertown—repair microphone issues, cable TV problems,Nexus issues repaired,parade
coverage and movie event
Maple Lake—Helped resolve cable outages, movie in the park events
Trailer- Added new microphones, repairs to cameras,tripods, camera cable reels, tripod storage
SWTV and Commission—Repair of UltraNexus and upgrade to VieBit, Handling day to day
commission questions,phone calls and email, Meetings with commission Chair and Treasurer,
Trailer work for winter shoots, work on upgraded VieBit changes, streaming upgrade, software
updates, Phone calls with Commission Attorney Robert Vose, Phone calls and emails and phone
calls with Charter.
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