Cable systems should be regulated based on two categories:
A. those who employ switched video and
B. those who don't.
Since most cable systems have exiled leased access to TV "Gorky" i.e. the digital tier, when they employ Switched Video, our presence on their digital line up uses no more bandwidth and capacity regardless of weather the customer is watching us or something else since switched video only sends one digital program stream at a time to each set top box (not counting previews).
We should get a break on the price since our presence in their digital switched video line up is not effecting their capacity at the expense of another channel or service. On analog we did use bandwidth even if no one was watching. Not so with switched video.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
Live Remote Broadcast - Election Returns
In an email Charlie Stogner asked me to share my experiences putting together the live election returns for our lease access channels.
I had purchased an "old" tv studio about two years ago...most of the inventory ended up in the garbage. A keeper of the equipment was an Videonics MX1 and an audio mixing board.
First, I got with the local phone company, they were very receptive to the idea of placing an internet connection in the county courthouse. We ended up with a two T1 lines paired, which gave me 1.5mb up and 1.5mb down...dedicated. We needed all this so we could communicate with our "broadcast" equipment at the two cable headends. We did not use full screen video, we used 320X240 and centered it to the bottom of the screen and placed an advertising banner above the video screen for the phone company. (The phone company traded the ad space for the two T1 lines) We also sold the ad space on the right side of the screen and kept the left side of the screen for self promotion.
WE use Scala InfoChannel5 as our playback units at the headends. Scala picked up our internet feed without any real problems.
We also streamed the election return on our website. We used a hosting company for the streaming and they seemed to work very well. Although we did get one disconnect to the cable headeands. I'm not sure if it was the Scala Players or the hosting company. I'm leaning toward the players.
Anyway, we showed up at the court house about 4 hours ahead of broadcast for set up. We had the following equipment:
Videonics Video Mixer
Audio Mixing Board
2-laptop computers....one was for palyback of sponsorship commercials and the other was to monitor the scala players at the headends (this was very important).
3 cameras
Mics
router
Desktop computer for sending the Windows Media Encoder feed to the hosting company.
All in all it went pretty smooth. Our small community has never had anything like this done live before. We received loads of complements and 25 paying sponsors. We made the splash I wanted to make with this Live Election Returns on TV Camden.
I had purchased an "old" tv studio about two years ago...most of the inventory ended up in the garbage. A keeper of the equipment was an Videonics MX1 and an audio mixing board.
First, I got with the local phone company, they were very receptive to the idea of placing an internet connection in the county courthouse. We ended up with a two T1 lines paired, which gave me 1.5mb up and 1.5mb down...dedicated. We needed all this so we could communicate with our "broadcast" equipment at the two cable headends. We did not use full screen video, we used 320X240 and centered it to the bottom of the screen and placed an advertising banner above the video screen for the phone company. (The phone company traded the ad space for the two T1 lines) We also sold the ad space on the right side of the screen and kept the left side of the screen for self promotion.
WE use Scala InfoChannel5 as our playback units at the headends. Scala picked up our internet feed without any real problems.
We also streamed the election return on our website. We used a hosting company for the streaming and they seemed to work very well. Although we did get one disconnect to the cable headeands. I'm not sure if it was the Scala Players or the hosting company. I'm leaning toward the players.
Anyway, we showed up at the court house about 4 hours ahead of broadcast for set up. We had the following equipment:
Videonics Video Mixer
Audio Mixing Board
2-laptop computers....one was for palyback of sponsorship commercials and the other was to monitor the scala players at the headends (this was very important).
3 cameras
Mics
router
Desktop computer for sending the Windows Media Encoder feed to the hosting company.
All in all it went pretty smooth. Our small community has never had anything like this done live before. We received loads of complements and 25 paying sponsors. We made the splash I wanted to make with this Live Election Returns on TV Camden.
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