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5.0.A SWCSR 11-18-20211 Sherburne Wright Cable Commission Equipment and Technology November 18, 2021 City AV Upgrades and Highlights Since our last meeting we continued the upgrade of meeting rooms in our member cities. We also assisted cities with building projects and remodeling. Some of the highlights are listed below. Watertown - We added a camera system and Barco Clickshare to their TV monitor. We also built a portable Zoom room on a cart for them to use in the City Hall meeting rooms. It also has the added capability of playing back videos. Watertown Meeting Room Monticello - We added a camera system and Barco Clickshare to the Monticello Warehouse meeting room. This is a multi-purpose room that is setup for a wide variety of uses including yoga, workout classes and meetings such as Weight Watchers. Monticello Warehouse Multi-Purpose Meeting Room 2 Buffalo - We are in the very beginning phases of installation for the new Buffalo Fire Department facility located across the street from City Hall. There is a training room, multiple meeting rooms as well as AV support for their 911 Call display. This construction will probably last through the 1st quarter of 2022. Elk River - We have been involved with quite a few projects in Elk River since the last meeting. We helped them with the Public Safety upgrade of their Emergency Operations Center. This included rooms in their Police Department and Fire Station. Elk River Defensive Training Room Elk River EOC Elk River Police Department Roll Call Room The Defensive Training Room has a special monitor and sound system so that they can practice while watching training videos. The Roll Call room is designed so that the officers can all meet before their shift to receive information about incidents in the city. The EOC is used as a regular meeting room but can also be configured to respond to any emergency situations that occur in the city. 3 Dassel - We created 2 portable "Zoom Rooms" on carts that are being used at City Hall in Dassel and also at their History Museum. The History Museum has a multi-purpose meeting room and hosts several meetings a week for the city. This cart has a camera, speakers, microphone system and 85" monitor all mounted on a movable cart. It uses the Fob system shown above and is designed to be used with laptops. Elk River Drone Usage Both of the Elk River Producers, Micaela Strand and Jake Pace have completed their drone training and are state licensed drone operators! They have made extensive use of the drone and it has been featured in many city productions. The last I heard they had logged over 800 flights. Summer Events This summer we were back in the regular swing of things and more than made up for the drought we had last year caused by the pandemic. We held many successful Movie in the Park events. We had a mix of movies using both the Drive In technology as well as the old fashioned setup in the parks. 4 Buffalo Bandstand Movie Buffalo Legion Drive In Movie Delano Elementary Movie Watertown Parade 5 Cokato Corn Carnival Delano 4th of July Parade The summer seems like a blur now but we had a lot of highlights. We were happy to welcome back some past volunteers in Delano and Rockford. One of our earliest volunteers, Brian Stewart brought his new pup along to visit us at the Delano 4th of July parade. He was happy to sit in and run graphics for the parade. The very next day he moved to Colorado so we felt honored that he spent his last day in town volunteering. Setting up for the Delano parade is always challenging because we add a roving parade announcer with a wireless headset and mic in addition to the celebrity announcers on the stage across from City Hall. This is our 2nd year at this location and we hope we never have to move 6 because we love being right in the middle of the action. Special Thanks go to Minnesota State Representative Joe McDonald who lets us park our trailer in front of his photography studio and also tap into his electricity to power our equipment. In Watertown we had quite a few laughs watching the spaghetti eating competition sponsored by Mario's. Mario was also kind enough to give us a premium spot to setup at for the parade. After the parade we sat and enjoyed some lemonade and music while talking with City Staff. Cokato of course was a highlight because there is nothing that attracts volunteers like the promise of free corn. The Coronation is always a big production and we always have many old friends visit us at our trailer on top of the hill. At the end of the night we always treat the remaining volunteers to a slice of pie. The volunteers also look forward to the last parade of the year in Dassel. We especially love the addition of the food trucks along the parade route. We have to admit that Rockford knows how to throw a party. It might not technically be held in summer but Rocktoberfest always seems like the last event of the year and Rockford always makes it end with a bang. They had 4 bands and the biggest fire pits you'll ever see. We survived setting up in the rain but the night ended very well with a huge crowd enjoying the music. Rockford's Rocktoberfest Highlights 7 Rockford's Rocktoberfest Highlights 8 Transitions Renee Eckerly - Maple Lake City Administrator Jake Foster - Watertown City Administrator Renee Eckerly Renee Eckerly started as the new Maple Lake City Administrator on July 12. She worked as the Cass Lake City Clerk-Treasurer for five years. After this she worked in the city of Paynesville as City Administrator for 13 years. Jake Foster Jake started as the new Watertown City Administrator on October 25th. Jake was previously the assistant city administrator for Chanhassen, he’s also worked in Fridley as a digital marketing assistant as well as assistant city administrator for Lake Elmo. Movie in the Park and City Event Schedule Important: Please make sure to bring your preferred dates for the Movie in the Park schedule. We also need you to bring the dates for your city celebrations so that we can put the parades and coronations into the SWTV calendar. Watertown and Cokato Streaming We have installed the live streaming equipment that was approved at the last meeting in Watertown and Cokato. This is available to view at www.watertown.viebit.com and www.cokato.viebit.com 9 Closed Captions for Council Meetings and Channel Playback Several of our member cities have recently asked about Closed Captioning legal requirements and our capability to use them. We have just started researching this issue and we will be responding more on this in the future. I wanted to give you a brief overview of what we are looking at so that if you are asked questions you are aware that the Commission is looking into the issue. There are 5 areas that Closed Captions are used for: 1) Closed Captioning for Those Attending the Meeting in Person 2) Captions for Live Coverage on Cable TV 3) Captions for Live Streaming of Meetings 4) Captions for Replays of Meetings and other Programming on Cable 5) Captions for Playback of Programs on Video On Demand There are two (2) main types of captioning systems. Those that are purchased outright and those that are leased. This also includes systems that use the cloud for language translation and those that use dedicated equipment that's located onsite. This equipment is interfaced with our control room equipment and depending on how it's configured it will encode speech and display captions in one or all of the areas previously listed. We are currently gathering information on cost and the technical requirements to interface this technology with our current equipment. I will be presenting more information at our meeting. I'm also working with our Commission Attorney to clarify the legal requirements.