WGTV-16 (Town!) Prob's/Sol's

[Dr.Ken Sokolowski]

Regarding PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS to Wethersfield Government TeleVision, WGTV-16:

www.courant.com
www.courant.com/news/local/hr/hc-wetpublicacess1123.artnov23,0,1578887.story

Town Meetings Will Be Taped For Airing Later

By ANN MARIE SOMMA
Courant Staff Writer
November 23 2006

WETHERSFIELD -- The poor picture and sound quality of town council and board of education meetings on Channel 16 has persuaded town officials to stop airing the meetings live.

Instead, the meetings will be taped and replayed on the government access channel on Cox Communications at scheduled times.

"It's so frustrating for people to watch the meetings live," Town Manager Bonnie Therrien said.

For months [years! KES], residents have complained to town officials about the white static lines that often obscure the picture and about the poor sound quality. The problem seems to be with the live feed originating from Silas Deane Middle School, where town meetings are being held during renovations to town hall.

Gary Santoro, a coordinator for the government access channel, said the town's Cox Cable Advisory Committee has been working with Cox to fix the problem, but a solution hasn't been found.

"If we can't put out a quality show live, it's not worth it," Santoro said.

Santoro said surrounding towns are also experiencing similar technical difficulties with broadcasting meetings on Cox, which provides cable service [service, really? KES] to Glastonbury, Manchester, Newington, Rocky Hill, South Windsor and Wethersfield.

Richard Garrey, chairman of the Cox Cable Advisory Committee, said the quality of the live broadcasts has worsened in the last year and half, when town meetings were moved to the middle school.

"The fact that it's live is nice, but if you are interested in seeing what they are saying the rebroadcast is fine," Garrey said.

Beginning this week, Tuesday's
[Mondays'] town council meetings will be taped for viewing on

Wednesday and Friday at 7 p.m., and
the following Monday at 7 p.m.
They will also be shown Monday though Friday at 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday's [sic] school board meetings will be taped for viewing on

Thursday and Saturday at 7 p.m, and
the following Tuesday at 7 p.m.
They will also be show Monday through Friday at 2:30 p.m.

Garrey said the meetings again will be broadcast live once the town hall renovations are complete.

Contact Ann Marie Somma at [e-mail].
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

[standish]

I am disappointed that Council broadcasts will not be live for the foreseeable future. I, for one, and I specifically know of others, who have literally driven to a meeting because a topic was covered, or as a result of dialog during a broadcast. It's tough to drive to a meeting that's already occurred!
Though I no longer have local cable access, I suspect that many others will bemoan the loss of timeliness.

[RGarrey]

I am also disappointed in the loss of live meetings, but I did agree with the town's decision to suspend them until the quality could be improved. There are multiple factors that are contributing to the poor quality of the broadcast. First is the location, the live transmission from the Middle School was supposed to be a temporary setup, if I recall about 6 months. This has obviously been extended to, years, not months, due to the delays in the renovation of town hall. We knew that the signal was going to be weak but it was decided that for a few months it would be acceptable. Also the sound and lighting at the school are not the same as the council chamber. The second issue now is the degrading of the signal quality from Cox Cable that is affecting both Channels 14 and 16.

I have no idea when the renovations will be done, that could be a whole thread in itself. I can however comment on the signal quality from Cox Cable. It has been an issue for years now and I am losing faith that Cox will resolve the issue on it's own. At WCTV-14 we are going to begin bringing the issue to the DPUC and our elected leaders looking for help. I would encourage anyone on this thread who would like to help, to e-mail the Cox Cable Advisory Council and complain about the signal. You can submit a comment at www.ccacouncil.com. This will help as we go forward in trying to resolve this problem.

[SyZyGy]

Judging from the quality of the recording and broadcasting of the Hemmann - Moron Debate, I know the quality level that is possible via the impaired Cox system - not too bad at all.

Now compare that with the pathetically poor quality of the recent broadcasting of the recording of the Nov. 20, 2006, Town Council meeting. Though the video quality of the broadcast was tolerable, the audio was essentially inaudible and hence intolerable. In order to hear a semblance of information, the viewer had to turn the volume way up. As soon as that was done the static was unbearable.

It appears that there was no direct feed from the PA system (both from the Councilors' mikes and from the microphone in the pit) to the video camera. It sounded as if the camera was TRYING to pick up the sound from the load-speakers within the auditorium.

You cannot blame the poor quality of THIS broadcast on Cox Cable!

I blame it on the Town Council and the Town Manager. In this day and age, there is no excuse for such a poor showing. The entire Council should direct the manager to do what it takes to get this problem solves both internally (Town) and externally (Cox). Fixing the Town-side problem is a matter of commitment and financing. Fixing the Cox problem is a matter of commitment and politicking. The former is doable in the short run and the latter in the long run.

Each and every member of Council (and supposedly the BOE) should be hopping mad, at this point, that each every word which slips from their lips is NOT being heard by members of the public who really DO want to hear what the hell is going on at these meetings - for themselves!

What the hell is wrong with the members of the Council, the BOEducation and their administrators? Wethersfield deserves better!

[cruzrt]

I too am displeased with Cox's performance for our live Council/BOE meetings. But, let's not fool ourselves. Most of the problems are NOT Cox, they are Wethersfield government problems. The microphones in the Middle School auditorium are usually very weak. Many of the councillors/board members tend to mumble or not speak into the mics. The mic. for the public is almost always very weak. The video-recording device (don't know if it's a VCR or DVD recorder) usually has lots of static noise and snow picture. As soon as the tape of the Council meeting ends, the static and snow on Channel 16 mostly goes away. Last Monday, I went over to the Middle School to watch-observe part of the Council meeting. The mics. were working well (for a change) and the sound was loud and clear. Yet, the video tape on Channel 16 has very low sound and ie kind of echo-ey. It's been that way for along time, from even before they moved out of Town Hall. So, I as a many-thousand dollar town taxpayer insist that our Town Manager get these long-standing problems solved. That Middle School has a newly renovated auditorium. Wherever the problems are, they are not going to get fixed as long as the manager and her staff don't take the issues seriously.

[oldetowne]

As others have said, Cox Communications aside, the real issues are the inability of the town to finish the renovations at town hall (Council meetings were originally supposed to return to Town Hall in January 2006) and the unwillingness of town staff to do anything about the transmission problems. I also have to wonder whether the lame duck mayor and the rest of the Council majority really want the public at large to watch and listen to what they do in the first place. Eliminating public comment, moving the meetings, not posting minutes on the website (June-October only showed up AFTER election day), and now not broadcasting the meetings live.... Hmmm. May be more than a random coincidence.

[SyZyGy]

Let's see.
Shirley controls the WDTC. As its chairperson, she controls who gets to sit on the boards and commissions in Wethersfield. The second (distant?) in command at the WDTC is its vice-chairperson Joseph who just happens to head town hall - library renovation project. OT, as you said: "May be more than a random coincidence." Is it really a surprise that the WGTV-16 isn't working right or that Russ didn't claim "credit" for the great "progress" (cough, cough) at the Town Hall / Library?

[cruzrt]

Rick Garrey and several callers discussed the Channel 16 problems with Town Council (& BOE) television last Friday night, January 5th. They all clearly stated that the bad picture quality, and more important, the terrible sound quality are problems being caused by the Town Government staff's unwilllingness or incompetence in hooking up the video recorders. These are not problems being caused by Cox Cable transmission. But, the Town Manager keeps insisting that Cox is the cause. If you turn your TV volume up all the way, you can hear her say that the same problems would happen no matter what building was being used. Garrey (and I concur) says that the problems will never be cured until the Town Government staff decides to expend some resources to fix them. He also stated that the Town Hall renovation project is 1 full year behind schedule. That means the Council and BOE meetings will be in the Middle School for a lllllllllong time to come. Does anybody care? We citizens need to start hollering.