March 12, 2009 Cable Advisory Board Minutes

Meeting called to order at 7:25pm

Present: Margaret Case (Chair), Leo Hart (Vice Chair), J. Gross, Dave Unger, Roger Hohenberger, Alan Shoemaker and Greg CappielloAlt.(sitting for Mary Griffin)

Excused: Mary Griffin and Dan Griffiths

Stacey Sofronas (Coordinator),

Barbara Coish (guest), Brian Christiansen, Comcast (guest)

Comcast

Brian Christiansen for Comcast discussed non -subscriber revenue:

The board discussed the definitions of non- subscriber revenue.

Motion by J .Gross to recommend to the board of selectmen to remove the non-subscriber revenue from the Definition in the Franchise, seconded by Dave Unger approved 6-1

Leo Hart opposed

Brian mentioned Comcast would be introducing a customer guarantee. Customer guarantee is if they do not deliver to a certain metric to the customer, the customer will receive money from Comcast. Comcast plans to offer free months of subscriptions, money etc. If Comcast is late, or misses appointments, the customer automatically receives $20.00.

Minutes

Motion by J. to approve the minutes from January 8, 2009, and January 26, 2009

Second by Leo

Unanimously approved

Correspondence

Comcast News:

Margaret read a letter from Comcast regarding Comcast fees decreasing for the Hi-Definition triple play package.

The NFL network expires shortly. Comcast is currently negotiating to reach a fair agreement. If they cannot reach an agreement, the signal will be eliminated on May 1, 2009.

Fox business channel will no longer be part of digital classic or digital preferred. It will be apart of digital starter. Effective: April 15, a new channel lineup for the music choice

Effective January 28, 2009, Trinity Broadcasting will be included in the basic tier package, moving from the classic package. With this change, TBN will remain on digital channel 112.

Check received from Comcast for $207,711.77 Franchise fees.

Letter sent from Board of Selectmen to Comcast regarding prorate of credit for those that lost service during the ice storm of December 2008.

Coordinator's Report

The coordinator read the report. (See attached)

J. mentioned audio issues at the School Deliberative Session. Barbara and Roger mentioned it sounded better on Saturday for Town Deliberative Session.

J requested taping the workshop sessions at the SAU, or ask them to meet at the Planning department meeting room. He mentioned people are very interested in the workshop meetings.

Dave suggested we talk to the new school board chair about the issue.

Roger commented on the candidates forum offer that Stacey had posted on the bulletin board and said it was a nice gesture.

Stacey brought up lights in the planning room. She mentioned Barbizon Lighting toured the room and recommended lighting for the space.

J. mentioned putting more light in the room. He suggested the wall mounted 8ft light on the rear wall. J and Stacey will try this out to see if it helps. Al Barlow will be asked for his assistance

High School

Barbara Coish and the Board discussed the cable studio at the high school.

The board asked Barbara to set up a meeting with the High School Principal and the Dean of Math and Sciences and other related individuals for March 26, 2009.

Motion by Roger to Adjourn.

Second by J. and unanimously approved.

Ajourned at 9:37pm

Coordinator’s Report- March 2009

Shoots:

Since our last meeting in January, we have taped various shows regarding the election on Tuesday, March 10, 2009.

They were:

Town/School Deliberative Sessions- Taped LIVE on Channel 20

Saving Spaces in Windham with Dijit Taylor: a program intended to inform viewers about how to conserve space in town.

Special Edition of Windham Watch with Planning Board Vice- Chair Nancy Prendergast: explanation of the proposed Zoning Amendments

Candidate’s Night: a candidate’s forum taped LIVE over Channel 21

Ballot Information Night: program taped to inform voters of the proposed warrant articles

I also taped two episodes of Time for Animals. And we have a new show:

In Depth: School and Community- a show hosted by Dr. Frank Bass (superintendent of schools). Dr. Bass brings in guests from all the schools in Windham and talks about what is new, and what developments will be seen in the near future. He hopes to tape a show once a month.

We also taped new episodes of Book Beat with Windham Middle School. We are also continuing with Windham Wildcat News- the news show produced/directed by 6, 7 and 8 graders. Upcoming studio shoots in March include Rockingham Roundtable, Windham Watch, and Book Beat.

Equipment Purchases

At our last meeting I reported that two mics were not working in the Planning Board meeting room. The mics have since been replaced. I had to install those rather quickly and was not able to look into PZM mics for the table but am looking into purchasing those to help as well. The third camera has been installed, however, we had to order the power supplies separately which just arrived. We will be hooking that camera up next.

Regarding Light: It is my opinion that the lighting in the Planning Board room needs attention as we have discussed before. Jay has recommended a wall-mounted light, which is one of our options. While pursuing this, a Barbizon Lighting representative stopped in to introduce himself. I showed him the Planning Board Room and he gave me some information on how we can get good lighting in that space. I have some information/sketches to give the board an idea of his suggestions. Before I moved ahead with anything else, I wanted to get the board’s opinion on his suggestion.

Other news:

We had two equipment demonstrations. Blaine Holmes, a dealer for TriCaster, presented the first. The TriCaster is in my opinion a very unique tool and can be useful in many ways. In regards to the high school, I think this would be a very good way to get them started with a ‘studio’. The system is basically a ‘control room/studio’ in a portable box. It will allow the user to do a three-camera shoot inside or out, run graphics, and record at the same time. You also have a wide variety of virtual sets you can use, which allows for much more flexibility for set design. Major benefits are that it is portable so it can be used indoors or outdoors. The interface is also very user friendly perhaps for those that are just stepping into the field of TV production.

Margaret and I went up to Bedford to meet with Bill Jennings and to see their facility and talk about video on demand. They have their own website, but use a playback system called Tight Rope, instead of the Leightronix. Jim gave us a very in-depth demonstration of the system. This is similar to the Princeton Server, which I have mentioned before in that it is server based. Bedford is able to stream and have video on demand on their website via this system. Again, in regards to the high school studio, this is something we could think about for our studio, and pass the Leightronix over to the high school to get them started.

Goals:

My main project is to get the website and video on demand going. Unfortunately, I had to put that discussion on hold. Not only have we been exceptionally busy the past two months, we also had a major issue with ice dams on the building’s roof that I had to work around. Water leaked in the front of the building as well as in the control room over our equipment. I was forced to cover and unplug most of our control room and wait until the situation was dealt with. We were not able to do much in the studio for two weeks- immediately following I came down with a very bad Flu and was out of work for an entire week which set me back quite a bit. Seeing as things seem to be back to normal, I would like to set up a meeting with the tech committee.

Respectfully Submitted,

Anastacia Sofronas