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5.0.a. SWCSR 08-15-2019 Sherburne Wright Cable Commission Equipment, Technology and Production Report August 15, 2019 Production Update Summer is always the busiest time for us. We covered parades in Buffalo, Big Lake, Rockford, Cokato, Monticello and Delano. Watertown unfortunately was canceled due to rain. The Dassel parade is coming up on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. We also covered the parade that was held in Maple Lake for St. Patrick's Day. Coronations were recorded in Cokato and Rockford. We have also covered or provided equipment for events including a mock car crash at the Buffalo High School, time lapse recordings in Elk River, Buffalo Sings competition, audio systems for events in Delano, Cable covers for Watertown and many other events. � f r nnnnnd,i, N,ah.cn , FN.,m,mr - /. - E . ',mute nsh8•oMutlnoM to ioy M Movie in the Park We also covered Movie in the Park dates including Buffalo, Downtown Maple Lake, Monticello, Cokato, Rockford and Big Lake. We have another coming up on Friday in Monticello. So far we had only one postponement due to weather. That was rescheduled and went off without a hitch. .ail jrt. ._ 4 F' 1 SWTV Office We now have an office for SWTV! It is located at 9 West Division Street in Buffalo in the building owned by Otto Surveyors. We received a generous donation of gently used office equipment from the Big Lake Police Department and also the City of Buffalo. This included desks, file cabinets, tables and a printer stand. We wired the office for network access and Buffalo provided a fiber drop to our building. This will greatly help with the transfer of large video files. I'm almost done wiring up the edit suite and we are in the process of creating an archival NAS storage system for past programming. This will allow us to re-purpose footage for future projects. We also added shelving to allow us to store sensitive equipment indoors during the winter months. In addition we have a small workbench and system for reporting equipment that needs repair. We also have a small studio space where we can tape interviews and work with the portable production system. This office has already been a huge help in the day to day operations. Volunteers love that they now have a place to stop by and check in. Thanks to Mert and his Buffalo staff for helping us find this spot. u ,, a �,.+�+'•�� �i�� ar O vI A r •r • II 1 440 • New Portable TriCaster System and Wireless Mic System We have built 2 new systems that have helped us improve the quality of our productions. First is the portable TriCaster system. We have many venues where getting access with the trailer is difficult. Many schools have theaters where cities hold their coronations and candidate forums. These are often located in areas of the school where it was hard to pull cables back to our trailer outside. 2 The new system can be transported in a car and setup in a 3rd of the time the trailer can be. We covered the Rockford coronation with it on Sunday with a crew of 3. The program was ready to air by the time we packed up. The 2nd system is the portable wireless mic rack. We often get requests to use a large number of wireless microphones at the same time. This is difficult to do unless you have a system that is wired specifically with a special antennae array to accommodate that many microphones at one time. We used it at the Mock Car Crash in Buffalo. We had to mic up 8 different actors and first responders. Using this new wireless rack along with the Bose sound system made the event go off without a hitch. City Staff Changes Since our last meeting, LeeAnn Yager retired as Clerk in Maple Lake. Sabrina Hille is the new Administrator/Clerk. We've already worked with her in Delano and are happy to see her in Maple Lake. In Cokato, Lou Ann Worden retired. She helped us organize many events over the years and will be greatly missed. Her replacement, Teresa Martinson was very helpful this week during the Corn Carnival. Converter Exchanges In March we returned all the converters that cities did not want to be billed for. Some of you have had issues with incorrect totals on the Charter/Spectrum statements. Please let me know if you still have anything that's not been corrected. I'm working with Bob to figure out our options for upgrading the older converters as planned. Facebook Live Beta Testing Leightronix has invited us to be the test site for a Facebook Live link via VieBit streaming. Elk River has volunteered to be a test site. We will report back on the results at our next meeting. Production Truck We have been unable to use the truck this summer. As I previously reported we had numerous issues with the truck overheating and not starting last summer. This spring I took it in to the service center that Buffalo uses and they estimated that it could need between $7000 to $9000 of repairs to correct the problems. There are 4 leaks in the cooling system. Right now the batteries are completely dead and we can't keep them charged because this system keeps draining them. 3 There is also a problem with an aftermarket computer system that is draining the battery system. Right now the batteries are completely dead and we can't keep them charged because this system keeps draining them. We've been told that the truck is only worth around $8K. In 2018 we put in $5K worth of repairs and a significant amount in 2016. After discussions with Mert I'd recommend that we look at options for selling the truck. We are still researching options for a replacement. Equipment Upgrades and Repairs There were numerous repairs, installs and equipment upgrades in all our cities during the period between meetings. I'll highlight these at our meeting. u 1 . \ :...,. _ ,, . , 4 T 4 _ Sn t 4..- , . 4 :Nf 6,, '. , a 11.7 s 1 " r ~t .u._— 1 "'7 ,(p -... _ '.. + ' k ! r � r, .ate j r ! err ....., ('Mk k J Sherburne Wright Equipment Purchase Requests Council Chamber Presentation System Upgrades Currently all of 10 our cities have presentation systems in their council chambers that are wired with VGA style wiring and use VGA video scalers and scan converters. This is outdated and needs to be upgraded. Almost every computer system in use now uses HDMI ports. Currently we use adapters to convert the VGA signal to HDMI. This works but it downgrades the resolution of the computer which results in a fuzzy looking image. I've researched options extensively. I've met with numerous vendors and equipment manufacturers, attended trade shows and have done a fair amount of research searching for options. I narrowed down the options to equipment from two companies that met the needs of our particular city council systems. One manufacturer flew in from Austin, Texas and toured Buffalo City Hall to take measurements. I met with a second vendor from Crestron to do the same thing. 4 HDMI while being a common connection format in both home and business is not perfect. It was designed to prevent consumers from copying movies. It has a built in copy guard protection called HDCP that can cause chaos in TV's and video systems if the wrong equipment is used. Professional HDMI equipment has adjustments that the consumer equipment does not to overcome these problems. Hall Research is an emerging HDMI manufacturer and has come up with some interesting solutions to common problems with the format. Crestron is known as more of an established company in this field and is used in corporate and government board rooms. In discussions with our commission treasurer, Mert Auger I mentioned that I would like to install this equipment in one city first to work out the bugs and tweak the settings before recommending that we purchase it for all 10 cities. Each city council chambers is slightly different and I would like to use Buffalo for the first install. If everything goes as planned we would then move on to the remaining cities. The city of Big Lake is urgently in need of this upgrade followed by the cities of Delano and Elk River. After these we would move on to the remaining cities. AV Solutions (Hall Research HDMI Equipment) Quote Total: $7032.75 AVI Systems (Crestron HDMI Equipment) Quote Total: $7035.92 I've attached the quotes and I'm recommending the quote from AVI Systems. I feel more confidence in using the Crestron equipment after seeing it in use. We have used Hall research equipment before and it's good but not perfect. Action Requested: Approve the initial purchase from AVI Systems of Eden Prairie for the equipment listed in their quote for $7035.92 Nexus Raid Drives In each of our cities we use raid drives to record and store video on our Leightronix Nexus channel playback systems. Many of the cities raid drives are filling up or reaching the age where they need to be replaced. I recommend we do this before we have any raid drive failures and lose the meeting and program files that we have stored. Leightronix is a manufacturer and they sell these direct from the factory. Action Requested: Approve purchase of Qty. (10) 2TB Raid USB storage systems for $1799.00 each with Total Purchase Price: $17,990 5 Bose Sound Systems We use the Bose sound systems in our Movie in the Park system and in many of our city halls. They are portable and easier to carry that most comparable audio systems. We frequently loan out the movie systems to cities for use at their events. Lately we have run into scheduling conflicts where we have had use requests for systems in multiple cities on the same days. Delano has made use of the systems frequently for city celebrations, Veterans events, Holiday celebrations etc. We are recommending that the commission purchases 2 systems for them. Action Requested: Approve purchase of Qty. (2) Bose L1 Model II sound systems with cases priced at$4,027.12 each Total Equipment Cost: $8054.24 Total Cost for All Projects Requested: $33,080.16 111i11 +`' , ? 1114 4111 s i4 ) ' ws. ' 41:1,'",‘4.4,—d: -4 ifsk.a, ` y „fit' 11�11 e ::' tr:141::::;1*4: .-.41411111 ,t' i 1 • 4 ', tA11 1 1 PROGRAM[INPUT 2] ..a ' :: • 1"AAJA.. u 6