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May 9, 2008
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More than meetings
Henry TV14 team has big plans for new government channel
by Alicia Zappier
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Henry County, GA, is a fast growing community that is continually looking for effective ways to serve its citizens. It was one year ago that the county's Board of Commissioners decided to launch Henry TV14, its government access channel.
"There's so much that this county is doing for citizens. With Henry TV14, we can get the word out to help them have a better understanding of their local government and all the services it provides," said Julie Ernst, the station's communications director. "The more citizens know of, the more they can get involved with the community."
When Ernst first came to work at Henry County more than four years ago, she oversaw the various communications efforts and wrote press releases. She was surprised that a TV station didn't exist. "I was looking forward to working on this from the ground up," she said. "Starting a TV station was another exciting leg for me."
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| From left, broadcast production specialist Nathan Monroe, communications director Julie Ernst, and broadcast producer Kevin Williams show off Henry TV14's control room. |
Such was also the case for Kevin Williams, broadcast producer at HenryTV14. Williams had worked several years for various state agencies in Georgia (including the Georgia Department of Public Safety) producing and editing training videos. "With the state there's only so far you can go, so this was a great opportunity," he explained.
According to Williams, some 60,000 of Henry County's 195,000 residents subscribe to Henry TV14. The station mostly covers Henry County Board of Commissioners meetings, and much of its programming is produced in the community room, which is reserved for these and county town hall meetings. The community room houses a ceiling-mounted Panasonic PT-D5500U DLP projector that projects onto a 9x12-foot Da-Lite screen. The general public may convene there as well, though they have to meet certain criteria and pay a fee.
The Board of Commission meetings are held four times a month. Each meeting is aired three times per day on Henry TV14. "Between each meeting we air two, 15-minute blocks of info -- one from the county and one from the four cities that make up Henry County," Williams explained. "They include anything from information about recycling, job openings, and upcoming county and city events. The Board of Commission meetings are our bread and butter right now."
Based in the city of McDonough, GA, Henry TV14 broadcasts from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week from the county's administrative building. The operation is housed in a control room with a sophisticated mix of gear that allows it to record its meetings and archive them tapelessly, with Hitachi cameras and an iStoRA server from Breece Hill. Williams runs the control room with Nathan Monroe, broadcast production specialist, and both act as cameramen and editors.
Streaming Soon
Beginning this month, Henry TV14 will broadcast live commission meetings from Henry County and stream them over the Internet. "This was also the decision of the Board of Commissioners. They really want to maximize the station, and right now it only reaches one-third of the households in Henry County," explained Ernst. "So by streaming our stuff online, it's another way for us to reach more people.
"Once we go live this month, citizens will be able to click on the TV14 logo on our Web site and watch the commission meetings entirely or select specific agenda items from a specific meeting and watch only that portion of the meeting."
The station is using MediaManager, MinutesMaker, Outcast Encoder, and MediaVault streaming software from Granicus. Ernst said other than a few graphics that are added for aesthetic purposes, the meetings are entirely unedited and run gavel to gavel.
Recently, Henry TV14 invested in a scan converter, so it could quickly and efficiently scan presentations into video without staff members having to scan them into slide format first. "Whenever someone presents a DVD or PowerPoint, people can see it in the community room, but we have no way of getting that signal to our switcher in our control room," Williams explained.
As a result, the station recently purchased an Analog Way Broad Scan BSC730. "It enables us to receive a signal directly as an available shot to take during production. We really needed this for our workflow, and it's critical to our online streaming," Ernst added.
Henry TV14 is familiar with the company's products. The Octo Vue OVP831 seamless switcher is already being used in the station's control room. Both Analog Way products work in conjunction with the control room's NewsFlow from Video Technics, an end-to-end digital solution for ingesting, editing, playout, and archiving. It includes scheduling software so Ernst and Williams can program a week at a time and don't have to be in the control around the clock to run programming.
The control room is built around a Ross Video Synergy production switcher, Avid Deko 550 CG, and Mackie Onyx 80 series audio mixer. "We also use Apple's Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, which complements our all-digital workflow," Ernst said.
A Hitachi Eagle pan/tilt controller in the station's control room operates five Hitachi HV-D15AS cameras with Fujinon S20x6.4BMD lenses installed in the community room. The community room also houses microphones from AKG, Sennheiser, and Shure, along with a TPS-3000 Isys touch panel control from Crestron Electronics.
Georgia-based dB Audio & Video supplied the control room equipment, while Georgia-based Technical Innovations worked with the station to install the equipment in the community room. "It was remodeled by our own facilities maintenance staff," Ernst explained. "All the wood furnishing, including the benches and the double podium, were also designed by us."
Beyond The Community Room
On the heels of its successful inaugural year, Henry TV14 is expanding its offerings. "We're branching into more informational and educational type stuff," explained Williams.
With the purchase of two Sony DSR-PD170 camcorders, Henry TV14 has taken to the streets to shake up its programming mix. "Right now we've got a 10-minute video in production on the Henry County Stormwater Management Department. It talks about what they do and how they serve the community. It's in production and will air about four to six times a month," said Williams.
The station is also working on a 12-minute information video on the county's special purpose local option sales tax, aptly called SPLOST.
Henry TV14 is planning on new studio space in the Henry County Administrative Building, complete with new lighting, monitors, prompters, and more. Ernst said the additional studio will cost about $40,000 and will be paid for with the county's general fund.
Construction will start in the beginning of next year and should be completed by the end of 2009. The station plans to purchase an additional Sony PD170 camcorder and use all three for the new studio. "We're looking to have two small sets, one for a news program and the other for a talk show," Ernst said.
MORE INFO
Adobe adobe.com
AKG akg.com
Analog Way analogway.com
Apple apple.com
Avid Technology avid.com
Breece Hill breecehill.com
Crestron crestron.com
Da-Lite dalite.com
dB Audio & Video dbaudioandvideo.com
Fujinon fujinon.com
Granicus granicus.com
GVExpo gvexpo.com
Hitachi hitachi.us
Mackie mackie.com
Panasonic panasonic.com
Ross Video rossvideo.com
Sennheiser sennheiser.com
Shure shure.com
Sony sony.com/goverment
Video Technics videotechnics.com
Research at GVExpo
On the second day of his job with Henry County in December 2005, Kevin Williams, along with Julie Ernst, attended the Government Video Technology Expo in Washington, DC. "Julie had started receiving Government Video and had been reading about the show. It felt like something we needed to attend to help us figure out what direction to go in here at Henry County," Williams recalled.
Strolling the aisles, Williams and Ernst anxiously sampled much of the new tapeless gear that was on display that year, including Panasonic's P2 solid-state solution and Sony's popular XDCAM series. "These two products are really what got us thinking. We saw this [tapeless solution] as an industry trend and realized it just didn't make sense for us to start out with new equipment that was becoming antiquated," Williams said.
Fishing For Solutions
The installations at Henry TV14 were not without their challenges. When the Hitachi cameras were first installed on the ceiling in the community room, they were experiencing vibration problems.
"We're talking 25-foot ceiling here, and the cameras were swinging like pendulums," explained Henry TV14's Kevin Williams explained . One of our maintenance guys suggested securing them with fishing line. So we did and it works great.
"It balances the cameras and keeps them from shaking," added Henry TV14's Julie Ernst.
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