I hate to admit it, but I’ve been in this business for almost 50 years. During that time, I have attended numerous trade show and conferences as both a potential client and as an exhibitor. Because of my experience at trade shows, I was genuinely concerned when JAG decided to stage this year’s Eastern Video Expo virtually. Of course, during the pandemic, I attended other virtual trades shows and numerous workshops on a variety of topics, but, in the few years I have been associated with JAG, I have come to really look forward to meeting with all my colleagues at the show. That said, I must confess, I was pleasantly surprised at how informative, and in some cases entertaining this year’s virtual conference proved to be.
One of the things I have learned over the years is that you never stop learning in this business. Whether it’s hearing about the latest technology or discussing how to better tell a story, there’s always something new to absorb. From the perspective of a person who has been creating some form of communications my entire professional life, I found the workshops that dealt with storytelling, interviewing techniques, editing and lighting fascinating and informative. I know I’m probably not the best person to address those workshops since I hosted several of them, but I really did learn something from the impressive list of professionals that participated in the panels. It’s always good to hear how others find their ideas, pitch them and then go about organizing the production. No two stories are ever the same, and no two executions ever go as expected. Knowing how to identify the important parts of your story, and being able to pivot if something doesn’t go as planned, are truly important when you are creating documentary programming.
It’s also important to understand different organizational techniques, and the methods people use to collaborate with a creative team. Clearly, collaboration has changed because of Covid 19 and will probably continue to change as technology evolves. No longer are you expected to get on an airplane to pitch a show; no longer do you have to be in the same room or even the same state as your editor; and no longer do you have to attend large recording sessions as the composer works with your footage. While I might miss those elements of the “creative” process, these are the realities of creating media in the post pandemic 21st century and it’s truly helpful to hear about them from those who create award winning programming. Of course, learning how to better light an interview seems like something I’ve been working on my entire professional life!
Although I personally may be partial to the workshops that dealt with the creation of compelling programming, there were certainly other elements to the Eastern Video Expo that were informative. As we all face the coming need to closed caption, it was valuable to learn about the options available to help us serve the hearing-impaired community. I also continue to be impressed by the changes that companies like TelVue and Cablecast make in their products to make our jobs as program directors and station managers easier. In addition, it continues to amaze me how integrators like Varto Technologies use these new tools to make our productions look better and reach more people through new streaming technologies. I also was able to learn more about social media marketing and analytics, something that mystifies old farts like me. Finally, it’s important to hear about the new methods of over-the-top distribution that are available to our channels. These tools will surely become more significant to PEG channels in the ever-changing media landscape.
Compared to others, I am relatively new to the world of PEG and Community media. I am always fascinated by the way things in Washington affect the way we operate. In my previous life, all I had to worry about was getting a program done, making it to length, delivering it on time, staying within the budget, and making it great. Now there’s a whole world in DC which I need to understand so I can evaluate what effect it will have on our business. I always find it interesting to hear about the things our legislators find important. The lawyers and directors of the various organizations that represent us always seem to have an interesting perspective on what we need to do to advance the things that are important to our JAG members. The Eastern Video Expo always seems to give them a forum to keep us up to date on what’s going on, and our legislator of the year, Congressman Donald Payne reminded us all of the important work we do.
Finally, our virtual conference wasn’t just informative, but it was entertaining as well. Simon Mandal made a potential dull keynote speech fun and informative. His performance on the virtual red carpet and at the JAG awards made the evening enjoyable even if you didn’t win. Did I miss seeing everyone in person? You bet, but did I find the virtual Eastern Video Expo informative and entertaining—absolutely, and I didn’t even have to get dressed and drive to a hotel to prove that you can still teach an old dog new tricks.
by Doug Seidel, Social Media Manager, External Relations Committee
3..2..1..Launch. The brand new JAGonline.org is live! You should notice some changes right away when you visit the website. If you were familiar with the site before you should have no trouble finding what you need, the main navigation has stayed the same. A huge difference is that things are a bit more organized. Since the site has been around for a while, we had a good amount of information and now it is just archived so it looks cleaner. We also were able to add some plug ins that make the site look more modern – notice the difference in the old and new directions pages.
Old and New Directions Pages on JAGonline.org
Take some time and look over the site. Big changes to our member lists and executive board members page. The articles also look better with the update, so you can have a better reading experience while visiting the site. I am sure you will agree that the site looks much better and information is easier to find.
NEW CONTENT ON WEBSITE- We have now posted 24 programs from the Eastern Video Expo events to the members only section of our website. To view the video content links below, you need a members only password.
Lighting isn’t for exposure – it’s for communication: Dave Landau, Cinematographer, lighting directorSponsored by DeSisti
Storytelling from Concept to Completion: Joe Lavine, Emmy award winning director/producerand Ouisie Shapiro, Emmy award-winningwriter/producer
Interviewing Techniques: Budd Mishkin, Broadcast Journalist andWilliam Weinbaum, digital journalist and producer ESPN
Marketing with Social Media: Sabrina Teekah, Producer & Host of“Now or Never” and Cyd Katz,Founder/CEO New Jersey Isn’t Boring
Editing Techniques in Storytelling: Joshua Vorensky, Emmy-Award WinningAssociate Producer with ESPNPaul Moessl, Film and TV Composer and Diego Martini, Emmy Award Winning Editor at ESPN
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Here’s my big confession: I do not like technology. I don’t trust it, I don’t enjoy it, and I generally believe that things work better without it. But I am running a PEG organization…..so I naturally deal with it.
Things were going just swimmingly at C-NET prior to March of 2020. Our tiny staff and crew of Penn State interns were traveling around the County with cameras, microphones and an array of other equipment to cover the meetings of sixteen different entities — Seven municipalities, two school districts, the County government, a regional Council of Governments, three regional Authorities, the local Library and Penn State. We produced over 500 programs in 2019.
Then, of course, everything changed. And for many months, it was a matter of producing the best programs we could utilizing Zoom. “Can you hear me now?”, “Please mute yourself” and “Your cat is in the way” became the phrases of our life.
Wide shot of a State College Borough Council meeting. The Mondopod is set up at the far end of the Council dais so that Council members can see virtual participants. Audio is provided to C-NET and amplified through the Borough’s installed audio system
And now, everything has changed again. Elected officials and members of the public have decided that they like attending meetings on their couch in their pajamas, and so what now? The dreaded HYBRID meetings. For the last three months or so, C-NET has been tasked with helping various government and regional organizations figure out how to allow elected officials, board representatives and the public to participate in meetings both physically in a meeting room and virtually.
Shot of the Mondopad at a State College Borough Council meeting. The bottom right view on the mondopad is the view of the meeting room provided to virtual
This means, of course, that everyone must be able to see and hear each other AND C-NET needs to obtain audio and video from both the room and the virtual platform. This would be a reasonable challenge if all sixteen meeting rooms had the same audio systems, etc., but they do not. Some of the rooms in which we work include installed mounted cameras and audio systems with reliable wireless internet. Other meeting rooms have no installed technology at all.
The result has been a myriad of different solutions. For meetings in the State College Borough Council Chambers, we are live switching between a Zoom feed and the mounted cameras in the room. The in-person participants are seeing the Zoom feed on the mondopad and hearing the audio through the Borough’s audio system.
A ”Meeting Owl” sits on a small table with a laptop at the Halfmoon Township Board of Supervisors meeting. The Own provides a microphone and 360 degree camera for remote participants.
We are using a Meeting Owl in several of the meeting rooms in which we work. This relatively inexpensive (less than $1,000) device uses a 360 degree camera and microphone to provide a view of the room and audio to and from the people in the meeting room and the Zoom participants. The Owl works particularly well in smaller meeting rooms.
Shot of the Zoom feed at the Halfmoon Township Board of Supervisors meeting using an Owl. The top view is the view from the 360 degree camera of the Owl.
A third configuration includes a lap-top camera and a high-quality exterior microphone to provide video and audio to Zoom participants, while the Zoom video is projected onto a screen in the room. In this case, C-NET live switches between the Zoom feed and our single camera. This has proved to be the most problematic of the various solutions.
A laptop and microphone placed on a small table in from of the Board table. The laptop feed is projected onto a screen in the room. The room’s installed audio system provides audio to the in-person participants. The exterior microphone provides audio to the virtual participants.
Another interesting outcome of the pandemic is that the public’s tolerance for a single camera panning between speakers is lessening. Virtual meeting platforms allow the speaker to be instantly highlighted on the screen, and we are finding that the public expects this to be the case with in-person production as well. To assist with this challenge, C-NET has recently purchased a Rushworks VDESK Compact PTZ Production and Streaming System as an affordable way to turn more meetings into multi-camera productions. More switching…..less panning.
I want to give a shout-out at this point for the annual JAG Eastern Video Expo. It was, of course, unfortunate that the Expo was cancelled in 2020 and had to be virtual in 2021, but the challenges brought about by the pandemic are precisely why this type of collaborative group conference is so valuable. For the most part, PEG stations have small staffs and modest budgets, and reinventing the wheel takes time and money. Talking to others who are facing the same challenges and issues helps everyone. We network, we learn, and we form relationships that will help us down the road. I’m very much looking forward to the next Expo!
C-NET is fortunate to have the financial support of the sixteen organizations that we serve. And we are committed to finding and designing solutions to meet the changing needs of their staffs and the public. Hybrid meetings and changes in the public’s expectations are here to stay. So while I don’t like technology, I am fortunate that the rest of the wonderful C-NET staff is talented, creative and willing to go the extra mile for our community.
C-Net Logo
C-NET is Centre County’s Government and Education Access Television Network. C-NET administers two channels, CGTV (channel 7) and CETV (channel 98) on the Comcast and Windstream Cable Systems. All of C-NET’s locally produced programming is available to view on-line, on-demand at cnet1.org. C-NET’s programming ranges from public meetings to high school sports, concerts, and local festivals. A C-NET member agency must sponsor each program that airs on the channels. There are currently 16 members: Bellefonte Area School District, Bellefonte Borough, Centre County Government, Centre Region Council of Governments, the Centre Region Parks and Recreation Authority, College Township, Ferguson Township, Halfmoon Township, Harris Township, Patton Township, Penn State University, Schlow Centre Region Library, State College Area School District, State College Borough, the State College Borough Water Authority, and the University Area Joint Authority.
by Ken Fellman, Of Council, Helmer, Conley and Kasselman, PA
Ken Fellman
As Americans have spent a significant amount of time on the internet during the pandemic, the federal government has created several programs addressing broadband deployment. Here, we address two major Congressional initiatives that provide significant funding to expand broadband networks. On March 11th, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan (ARP), which allocates funding to state, county, and municipal governments, and establishes that state and local governments receiving this funding may use it “to make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.” As of this writing (August 12, 2021), the House will be considering the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by the Senate, which establishes a $42,450,000,000 grant program to states who in turn award subgrants to local governments and other entities for broadband and other infrastructure projects.
On May 11th, the Treasury Department released interim regulations describing the allowable use of ARP funds. These regulations define “broadband infrastructure” as infrastructure designed to provide service to unserved or underserved households and businesses that reliably meets or exceeds symmetrical 100 Mbps speeds. [1] The regulations also define “unserved and underserved households or businesses” as one or more households or businesses that are not currently served by a wireline connection that reliably delivers at least 25 Mbps download speed and 3 Mbps upload speed. Thus, local governments may use ARP funding to provide broadband infrastructure to households that do not currently receive reliable service of at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds, so long as that broadband infrastructure is designed to reliably support symmetrical 100 Mbps speeds.
These regulations also provide flexibility to local governments: “Understanding that States, territories, localities, and Tribal governments have a wide range of varied broadband infrastructure needs, [these regulations] provide award recipients with flexibility to identify the specific locations within their communities to be served and to otherwise design the project.” The Treasury Department notes that local governments have the discretion to determine whether 25/3 Mbps service is being “reliably delivered” in an area, and the discretion to determine whether ARP funds may be expended on improving broadband infrastructure in that area.
To receive ARP funding, counties and metropolitan cities (municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more) must request money directly from the Treasury Department; smaller cities (which the ARP calls “non-entitlement units of local government” or “NEUs”) receive ARP funding from their state. To apply for funding, local governments must have a valid DUNS number as well as an active registration with the federal government’s System for Award Management (SAM) database. According to the Division of Local Government Services of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (the “Division”), funds for NEUs are distributed through the State Treasury. These local governments must execute an Award Terms and Conditions Agreement and submit a Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Distribution Request and Certification Form to the Division to request payment. Unlike ARP funding to state and local governments, the Infrastructure Act (assuming the House approves it without major changes) will create a grant program run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for broadband projects. NTIA will award grants to states who will then award subgrants to local governments and other political subdivisions for broadband projects. 10% of this grant money is set aside for high-cost areas based on the proportion of unserved locations in high-cost areas in the state compared to those in all states, with the remaining amount allocated to states based on the proportion of unserved areas in the state relative to the unserved areas in all states. [2] The Act defines “unserved location” as a broadband-serviceable location that either has no access to broadband service or lacks access to 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload service. States may award subgrants for a variety of reasons, including unserved and underserved areas, connecting eligible community anchor institutions like public housing authorities and healthcare providers, and for broadband project planning and data mapping.
[1] In areas where it is not practicable to build out networks that meet these speeds for reasons such as excessive cost or geography or topography of the area, the network must meet or exceed 100 Mbps download speed and between 20 Mbps and 100 Mbps upload speed and be scalable to 100 Mbps symmetrical.
[2] States must apply for funding; if a state fails to apply, a political subdivision or consortium of political subdivisions of the state may apply instead.
I am sure you all might have memories of this during some point in your life when you asked the Magic 8-Ball, “What Does The Future Hold?”. Did you get the answer? Did it leave you with “Ask Again Later”? Well, I am here to tell you it doesn’t take the Magic 8-Ball to get a glimpse into the future of access television, it just takes JAG along with some of our guest panelists from our conference sessions. In this article I am going to explore briefly with you some of the topics we discussed at our conference, allow you to watch these again (or for the first time) and see what valuable information you can gather from it
Outlook Good
In the session “The Future of PEG Access: Where Do We Go From Here”, I was fortunate enough to participate with three other people from around the country on this panel. J. Robertson from Hawaii, George McCollough from PrincetonTV and Mike Wassenaar of the ACM. We talked about how the COVID Crisis affected our operations, the various things stations did to remain relevant, how we emerged from the pandemic and what we learned from this situation that will carry us into the future.
You May Rely On It
Our discussions take you down the different paths that stations and municipalities went down during the crisis, along with how we emerged as well. Learn about how these stations all faced their own challenges, the ingenuity to evolve from those challenges and how they positioned themselves during this crisis. You will learn how stations adapted and positioned themselves as the source for updated information on both a local and state level as well. We also tackle the future hybrid meeting and its position in our operations. This round table discussion is something that you are going to want to watch again and again, and us it as a tool for your operations. This session is informative not only on a technology side, but extremely helpful on the management and operations side. This session can be found in the Members Only Section of the JAG Website under recorded webinars.
Signs Point To Yes
In another session that I was lucky to be a part of was “How Technology Will Shape The Future of PEG Stations”. This panel was comprised of forward-thinking individuals who not only represent manufacturers who support our industry, but these same people understand our operations, the communities in which we serve and our industry as a whole. Jesse Lerman of Telvue, Randy Visser of Cablecast and Rush Beesley of Rushworks gathered together to discuss every aspect of PEG operations and technology. As a group we tackle everything from live broadcasts, IPTV, OTT and other streaming platforms and social media. With the great strides connectivity, shared resources, remote access and more are all discussed. I urge you to watch this session again and again, use it as a resource guide and tool for your operations and a blue print on how your station might move forward. I have no doubt at the very least you will find an idea that you could bring forward to your station and municipality now and others you can use to plan out your station operations down the road. This session is one hour long and jam-packed with tremendous information and insight. This session can be found in the Members Only Section of the JAG Website under recorded webinars.
It Is Decidedly So
JAG is releasing another group of videos from our conference this month. There are six new videos posted. Besides the two I mentioned that deal with looking at the future of community access, one addresses Broadband and the other three are user groups by TelVue, Cablecast and Varto (Tricaster). There are many new videos on JAG’s website in the Members Only section for you to view. This requires a password and on September 1 the password will change. Contact Linda Besink, Treasurer at lbesink@gmail.com if you have any problems.
As I started this article, I will end the same way. It does not take a Magic 8-Ball to figure out the future of PEG Access, it takes JAG and the great compliment of members, users, manufacturers, and people in the industry we have positioned to be part of our sessions, webinars and discussions during meetings. Take advantage of this!
by Dustin Dumas, Station Manager, South Orange Maplewood Television
Dustin Dumas
The 2021 Eastern Video Expo conference was designed to bring the media community together to learn and share and this year it was virtual. As the station manager for South Orange Maplewood Television, I was looking forward to attending to learn and share ideas of best practices as well as see what the vendors offered for our small station and, of course, attend the JAG Awards!
The Expo did not disappoint and despite not being able to meet the other attendees in person, the virtual aspect did not hinder learning and connecting with the community.
Technical
From a technical aspect, the Expo was well-run. The main room and the breakout rooms were easy to access and the chat function within those rooms allowed for participants to engage with speakers and ask questions. Engaging was one of the biggest concerns I had when considering attending this virtual conference. I wanted to be able to fully participate and not just listen to speakers disseminating information to me. Due to the technology, there was minimal lag with speakers and audience questions were addressed in a timely manner since there was a dedicated person taking questions for the speakers. This was a good move as I have attended other online conferences where the speaker has had to both field and answer questions and this had not been done very smoothly. The technical organization of this aspect of the Expo made it much more interesting to attend virtually and be better able to engage with the speakers.
Affinity Lunch: Social Media
I was fortunate to be asked to co-host the Social Media Affinity Lunch and speak on social media and how it is best used to engage your audience. This was a great example of sharing knowledge as well as learning from attendees. The information shared was useful to attendees just starting with social media as well as those who were knowledgeable about social media. The combination of different levels of social media experience allowed everyone to participate. For example, one attendee was just venturing into social media and had specific questions on getting started. The open roundtable discussion allowed for several people to share their experiences with different platforms instead of just the two co-hosts. This type of interaction among the group was helpful in enabling everyone to learn.
JAG Awards
Given that the entire expo was virtual this year, I was curious as to how the JAG Awards would be presented. The awards presentation turned out to be upbeat and fun. While the awards were being presented in each category, it was nice to have each winner be able to give a short speech in real time. Although we were not physically in the same room, the use of Zoom helped create an awards ceremony that was both lively and fun for everyone involved. The addition of the red carpet event allowed everyone to show a little bit of flair of how they would walk the carpet. The red carpet was entertaining and creative since some took the traditional path of walking the red carpet while others chose to celebrate the red carpet in other ways from their offices. Given the limitations of having a virtual awards show, the JAG Awards turned out great!
The 2021 Eastern Video Expo conference covered many topics this year, more than I have space to cover in this column, but suffice it to say that this year’s expo was a good way to share ideas, learn and network with others in the industry. I learned many things that I will be able to take back to my home station and share with our producers and, in general, help create better programming.
While I look forward to meeting again in person, the virtual aspect of the conference did not deter attendees from being able to learn and, in fact, allowed me to attend more panels since it only involved me Zooming into another room.
by Doug Seidel, Social Media Manager, External Relations Committee
Doug Seidel
I have been busy updating our JAGonline.org website, this is going to be a big improvement. I won’t spoil all of the surprises but you will notice the change when you see it. This update will fix some issues like the slideshow on the homepage, and improve the formatting of things like the logos for our organizational members. Things will fit better on the pages and links to other pages will be easier to find. I am pretty excited about this update (especially because it will make my life easier to update the site) and hope to share the site with you all sometime in September! In the meantime if there is anything you want to see improved on the website, or if you have updated information about your content on the website (i.e. station address, contact e-mail) send that information to dseidel@piscatawaynj.org so we can make this site even better.
By Jesse Lerman, President and CEO, TelVue Corporation
Jesse Lerman
With accessibility gaining momentum both as a core mission and a compliance requirement, Closed Captioning is top of mind for Community Media broadcasters, and modern technology has made captioning affordable. As you move towards making your channels and programming accessible, what are the technology and workflow tradeoffs to consider?
Before reviewing some of the workflow considerations, let’s look at the two main types of captioning technologies available. Human captioning, where humans are scheduled to listen to the program audio and type out the captions, or Artificial Intelligence (AI) captioning, where audio is processed by computer programs and speech is automatically transcribed – also known as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) or Speech-to-Text (STT). Human captioning is highly accurate, but resource intensive and comes with a hefty price tag. AI captioning is automatic, highly scalable, with 80-90s % accuracy, and orders of magnitude more affordable.
For AI-based captioning solutions, the algorithms may run on dedicated hardware on-premise, or in the cloud. Cloud Speech-to-Text services have gone mainstream with major cloud computing providers including Google, IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft all offering services, as well as specialty providers. For both human and cloud-based AI captioning, it is common to stream audio and text over the Internet between the station and the cloud for processing. Audio and text are both low bandwidth, so this can easily be done reliably and with minimal latency.
TelVue LIVE cc with HyperCaster
Hardware captioning solutions can be quite expensive, with very high start-up capital expense in the $50k range. They also typically require caption encoders, which can easily cost an additional $4k to $6k per channel.
There is a growing trend in broadcast towards all-in-one systems, that simplify workflow, reduce complex integration points between varied systems, save money, extra rack space and power, and make support easier with one point of contact. Integrating captioning directly with playout and automation helps save money by eliminating the need for dedicated captioning hardware and traditional captioning encoders. Such integrated systems can provide hooks for using both AI captioning engines and human captioning. While AI captioning is so much more affordable and continues to get better, there may be times where specific events require the accuracy of human captioning.
For both human and AI captioning, quality audio with minimum background noise, and clear dialog without too many simultaneous speakers are all important for accuracy. AI captioning supports advanced features such as Custom Language Models to improve accuracy that allows configuring a list of commonly spoken names, words, and phrases so the automatic captioning knows what to expect. For example, a list of Council Member names for meetings.
Eliminating the need to manage caption events, scheduling, configuration, and file processing across multiple applications and systems.
Set-and-forget rules for which channels, live programming, or content is captioned, with which settings including program-specific Custom Language Models.
Automatically generating captions for videos right from your existing content interface.
Automatically marrying live captions with corresponding recordings for replays.
Displaying captions in native channel confidence monitors.
Highlighting which events will be captioned, and which content has captions.
Publishing captions along with videos for streaming, mobile, OTT, sharing and archiving.
Tight integration also allows for cost savings when combined with AI captioning engines and usage-based pricing by captioning unique programming only. Offline files and live events are processed once, saving the captions for replays. If you take replays and CBB out of the equation, you will likely find that your yearly usage-based caption cost will be extremely affordable. Grants and Sponsors for captioning can further offset costs.
AI captioning can also be used to solve more nuanced caption workflow challenges, such as Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) in which case there may be two separate audio tracks that both need captioning in different languages, or using AI language Translation services to present captioning in multiple languages. For live events on Cable, that could mean CC1 in English, and CC2 in Spanish, even if there is only one English-only audio track. For streaming & OTT, that could be any of 100+ languages you select that are important to your community.
Selecting Closed Captions
Captioning your programming opens up additional benefits beyond accessibility. Once you have captions available, the caption transcript text can be useful as searchable metadata. Viewers of your on-demand programming can search the captions to find specific topics of interest in your meetings and programming, and drill right to that part of the video. Some AI captioning also supports Speaker Diarization that automatically detects and tags each individual speaker, potentially useful for meetings and transcripts.
Searching the captions
TelVue recently launched SmartCaption™ LIVE to make captioning for Community Media broadcasters easy and affordable. SmartCaption integrates directly with the TelVue HyperCaster, no additional equipment required, providing the many all-in-one benefits. SmartCaption also supports a standalone server for simple integration with other playout systems, offering many of the same workflow and automation advantages. In both cases, usage-based pricing leveraging modern, AI-based captioning helps you control your costs and makes multi-language captioning ultra-affordable for live and offline captioning supporting both broadcast and streaming/OTT workflows.
Captions generated with SmartCaption are also compatible with TelVue CloudCast that displays captions in the web player, mobile (iOS & Android), and OTT apps (Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV). The CloudCast web player and mobile apps support Caption Transcript Search to make your meetings searchable, and captions can be translated to over 100 languages to allow viewers to select their language of choice. Captions can be embedded in broadcast files as standard CEA-608/708 in Connect for JAG Media Exchange sharing. SmartCaption also offers a powerful, cloud-based caption editor when quickly touching-up existing captions is required.
Now is a great time to start captioning your programming for accessibility and to better serve everyone in your community. The pricing for captioning is finally PEG-friendly, there are numerous options available, and the technology is ready for prime-time.
J Robertson, Managing Director – Ho’ike Kauai Community Television, Hawaii
When you choose to attend a community media conference you hope to be informed, engaged, inspired, and amazed.
For more than a decade I have had the unique pleasure of attending the annual JAG Conference known as the Eastern Video Expo. That experience has introduced me to new technology, production equipment, familiarity with vendors, skill development, political public policy practices, and a truly rewarding association with the people who regularly attend the gathering. Each year I look forward to a trip from the Garden Isle to the Garden State.
J takes a selfie with Eastern Video Expo in background
For the better part of the past year and a half life has transitioned to a not so realistic ZOOM life. Every Board meeting is on ZOOM, every council meeting, every community meeting, every family gathering and more. Life became a bunch of little boxes in a grid with mute buttons, screen shares, and a litany of background screens. Yes, I’ve seen your living room. One ends up blurry eyed with a migraine. Often these meetings are back-to-back on a never-ending cycle. The use of ZOOM has been a boon for communication and a tedious intrusion into time and space. It is also fraught with technical issues, failures, frozen panes, and bad connections. With an average of 5 ZOOM meetings a week and sometimes more the experience has been varied.
The Eastern Video Expo 2021 has reinforced my idea that ZOOM can and is a good tool. Being familiar with programs and virtual conferences for a while it was immediately apparent that the technical side of the Expo was in excellent hands. Doug Seidel over at Piscataway Community Television is remarkable. I watched as he juggled several simultaneous meetings, brought together social gatherings, managed the awards program, facilitated panels and the never-ending demand to add content via either video or power point. It was flawless. It was superb and the best technical display of pulling pieces together I have experienced. Doug and his team did an exemplary job in production. And for that matter the entire conference committee delivered an outstanding conference in all aspects. The topics, the panelists and the presentations were some of the best nationwide. Another impressive element was the knowledgeable and well-prepared moderators of each session. They continually fostered a cohesive discussion without straying off course.
The ability to execute the programs meant a meaningful experience at the conference. The knowledgeable panelists were showcased in the best fashion. The transitions were supremely smooth. The audio came through loud and clear. It was so perfect the attendees didn’t even notice, that’s how good it really was. One of the more interesting experiences was sitting on my lanai in Hawaii (yes early in the morning) listening to an outstanding music composer describe editing and sound while in England – brought together by folks in New Jersey. And it is true that a panel I participated in started at 4am Hawaiian Time but that was fun considering the other members of the panel and the attending audience.
The best part of this conference is each and every one who attends, along with access to the best vendor selection. This conference brings people together with an emphasis on delivering valuable information and access to the developing technology. All made possible by the Conference Committee and the JAG Leadership.
This conference brought back so many wonderful memories of years past while getting to reconnect with my dear friends in the JAG organization and the conference planning group. To see and speak with vendors was terrific. It was also a platform to thank those vendors who kept us running with advanced technology while taking the pandemic head on. I miss the annual trek to New Jersey, the friends I’ve made through the years, the associations, and the loads of fun during the events. It is my true hope to attend the 2022 Eastern Video Expo in person to continue to build these relationships, learn more, and experience the wonderful nature of the people of the Jersey Access Group.
By Adam Goldberg, Chief Engineer, Broadcast and Media Operations, College of the Arts, Montclair State
The School of Communication and Media Building (SCM) on the campus of Montclair State University opened in September of 2017. Designed to be a professional production space for the school’s TV, Film, Radio, and communications programs, the building hosts a variety of productions spaces.
These include:
2 HD TV studios with control rooms, each equipped with 3 Sony studio cameras with prompter, one jib camera, wireless microphones and IFBs, ETC lighting system, Sony switchers, VizRT graphics, AutoScript prompter, an Omeon server system with 6 channels of play/record, and a SSL audio board.
A 4K TV studio and control room with 3 Sony studio cameras with prompter, one jib camera, wireless microphones and IFBs, ETC lighting system, Sony switchers, VizRT graphics, AutoScript prompter, an Omeon server system with 2 channels of HD play/record, a Sony server system with 2 channels of 4K play/record, and SSL audio board.
Studio set
A professional film sound stage with 3 company power switches.
A 187 seat presentation hall with a 4K DCP projection system and 17-speaker 7.1 surround sound system. Additionally, the room is equipped with 6 Sony PTZ cameras and its own control room with a Sony switcher, PTZ controllers, ETC lighting system and Yamaha audio board to record presentations and live productions.
Presentation Hall
A 21st century live newsroom featuring television feeds from across the world surrounding its own news set. As the communications hub of Montclair State, the newsroom runs Avid iNews and is equipped with 3 Sony studio cameras, prompters and PTZ camera.
All of these spaces are interconnected to each other via a central video/audio/data Evertz Router. All use one RTS Adams Intercom system.
The facility is also connected to the LTN network. This allows us to send signals and receive live videos from around the world. As a result we’ve hosted uplinks for NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, PIX, NPR, BBC, and private events.
News set with camera operator, control room, final output
The building’s second floor is primarily dedicated to audio production. The state of the art facilities center on a 24-channel ProTools audio recording studio and a 16 channel ProTools Foley studio with multi-surface substrate floor, gravel/dirt pit and splash pool. The audio area also features 4 small ProTools post-production rooms for editing.
Just adjacent to the audio area of the building is the campus radio station WMSC, consisting of an On-Air live 24/7 room, prerecord productions room, and overflow talk room. The station can be heard locally on 90.3 FM, and internationally via wmscradio.com. WMSC is also streaming live on the iHeart Radio App as one of a few select college radio stations to be allowed onto the platform.
Audio recording studio
There is also a 35 seat private movie theater with a 4K DCP projection system and 16-speaker 7.1 surround sound system available for film screenings.
To support these facilities and the roughly 200 classes per semester offered by the School of Communications there are 5 computer labs ranging from 16 to 31 seats per room. All the labs are preloaded with Avid Media Composer, Avid ProTools, Adobe Creative Suite, Davinci Resolve, AutoCad and Vectorworks, just to name a few. The school offers class in Audio/Sound Design, Communication and Media Arts, Communication Studies, Documentary, Journalism, Filmmaking, Public Relations, Sports Media and Journalism, Television Production, Fundamentals of Speech, and a MA program in Public and Organizational Relations. More information on classes and degree programs can be found at: montclair.edu/school-of-communication-and-media/
There are also three additional mediated classrooms in the building used mostly for lecture courses for the Communication Studies and Public Relations programs. The building is also connected to other buildings on campus via dark fiber. Directly adjacent to the building is Morehead Hall where the academic offices are for the School of Communications and Media. The connection to this building allows us to send and receive multiple video signals between the two buildings, creating an interlink between the offices, conference rooms and two mediated classrooms with the production spaces in SCM.
The production spaces are also connected to two theaters on campus. Kasser Theater is a 500-seat professional theater. Seven PTZ cameras permanently mounted in the theater connect back to the production facilities in SCM. Additionally, there are video, audio, and intercom connections between the two facilities allowing the spaces to be fully interconnected for production. We are currently about to go into our third season of recording and producing shows in conjunction with MSU Peak Performances. (peakperfs.org)
Theater
Memorial Auditorium, the second theater on campus, seats 1000. Currently, the fiber run between our two facilities allows us to bring in studio cameras and additional support equipment in order to cultivate the theater into a production space.
We have also run fiber connections to the campus football field where other events are captured and/or streamed live, including Montclair’s annual graduation ceremonies. This past June, due to Covid-19 restrictions, we streamed 19 ceremonies over a one week span with 4 studio cameras, jib, 3 PTZ cameras and one wireless roaming camera all switched and streamed live.
Camera operator with wireless transmitter recording graduation
In addition to supporting the classes and other university initiatives, the building is also available for third party rentals. Our clientele list includes ABC, NBC, CBS, Google and Telemundo. We also do several recurring talk shows for local politicians in the area. We provide clients with a variety of rental packages ranging from a full technical crew provided by MSU, a mix of MSU and client crew, and space-only rentals. This is a great opportunity for our students to work side-by-side with industry professionals. In all three scenarios MSU provides engineering support to ensure the equipment and spaces are operating correctly.
Director watches film shoot on news set
In the past we’ve also rented facilities to Netflix and independent film makers, and hosted gubernatorial debates, film screenings, town hall meetings and private events. We were even honored to host a lecture by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg soon after the building was open.
More information about the building and rental areas can be found at: montclair.edu/bmo
News & Events
Posted: September 15, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Conference Review: You Never Stop Learning in This Business The Eastern Video Expo: A Personal Reflection
by Geoffrey Bellefonte, Cable Committee, Summit TV
I hate to admit it, but I’ve been in this business for almost 50 years. During that time, I have attended numerous trade show and conferences as both a potential client and as an exhibitor. Because of my experience at trade shows, I was genuinely concerned when JAG decided to stage this year’s Eastern Video Expo virtually. Of course, during the pandemic, I attended other virtual trades shows and numerous workshops on a variety of topics, but, in the few years I have been associated with JAG, I have come to really look forward to meeting with all my colleagues at the show. That said, I must confess, I was pleasantly surprised at how informative, and in some cases entertaining this year’s virtual conference proved to be.
One of the things I have learned over the years is that you never stop learning in this business. Whether it’s hearing about the latest technology or discussing how to better tell a story, there’s always something new to absorb. From the perspective of a person who has been creating some form of communications my entire professional life, I found the workshops that dealt with storytelling, interviewing techniques, editing and lighting fascinating and informative. I know I’m probably not the best person to address those workshops since I hosted several of them, but I really did learn something from the impressive list of professionals that participated in the panels. It’s always good to hear how others find their ideas, pitch them and then go about organizing the production. No two stories are ever the same, and no two executions ever go as expected. Knowing how to identify the important parts of your story, and being able to pivot if something doesn’t go as planned, are truly important when you are creating documentary programming.
It’s also important to understand different organizational techniques, and the methods people use to collaborate with a creative team. Clearly, collaboration has changed because of Covid 19 and will probably continue to change as technology evolves. No longer are you expected to get on an airplane to pitch a show; no longer do you have to be in the same room or even the same state as your editor; and no longer do you have to attend large recording sessions as the composer works with your footage. While I might miss those elements of the “creative” process, these are the realities of creating media in the post pandemic 21st century and it’s truly helpful to hear about them from those who create award winning programming. Of course, learning how to better light an interview seems like something I’ve been working on my entire professional life!
Although I personally may be partial to the workshops that dealt with the creation of compelling programming, there were certainly other elements to the Eastern Video Expo that were informative. As we all face the coming need to closed caption, it was valuable to learn about the options available to help us serve the hearing-impaired community. I also continue to be impressed by the changes that companies like TelVue and Cablecast make in their products to make our jobs as program directors and station managers easier. In addition, it continues to amaze me how integrators like Varto Technologies use these new tools to make our productions look better and reach more people through new streaming technologies. I also was able to learn more about social media marketing and analytics, something that mystifies old farts like me. Finally, it’s important to hear about the new methods of over-the-top distribution that are available to our channels. These tools will surely become more significant to PEG channels in the ever-changing media landscape.
Compared to others, I am relatively new to the world of PEG and Community media. I am always fascinated by the way things in Washington affect the way we operate. In my previous life, all I had to worry about was getting a program done, making it to length, delivering it on time, staying within the budget, and making it great. Now there’s a whole world in DC which I need to understand so I can evaluate what effect it will have on our business. I always find it interesting to hear about the things our legislators find important. The lawyers and directors of the various organizations that represent us always seem to have an interesting perspective on what we need to do to advance the things that are important to our JAG members. The Eastern Video Expo always seems to give them a forum to keep us up to date on what’s going on, and our legislator of the year, Congressman Donald Payne reminded us all of the important work we do.
Finally, our virtual conference wasn’t just informative, but it was entertaining as well. Simon Mandal made a potential dull keynote speech fun and informative. His performance on the virtual red carpet and at the JAG awards made the evening enjoyable even if you didn’t win. Did I miss seeing everyone in person? You bet, but did I find the virtual Eastern Video Expo informative and entertaining—absolutely, and I didn’t even have to get dressed and drive to a hotel to prove that you can still teach an old dog new tricks.
Posted: September 15, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Social Media Stats: September 2021 Based on Last 30 Days
by Doug Seidel, Social Media Manager, External Relations Committee
3..2..1..Launch. The brand new JAGonline.org is live! You should notice some changes right away when you visit the website. If you were familiar with the site before you should have no trouble finding what you need, the main navigation has stayed the same. A huge difference is that things are a bit more organized. Since the site has been around for a while, we had a good amount of information and now it is just archived so it looks cleaner. We also were able to add some plug ins that make the site look more modern – notice the difference in the old and new directions pages.
Take some time and look over the site. Big changes to our member lists and executive board members page. The articles also look better with the update, so you can have a better reading experience while visiting the site. I am sure you will agree that the site looks much better and information is easier to find.
Jersey Access Group
facebook.com/pegtv linkedin.com/company/jersey-access-group instagram.com/jersey_access_group
EASTERN VIDEO EXPO
facebook.com/Easternvideoexpo instagram.com/easternvideox/
Do not forget to check out our YouTube channel Have something you want on our YouTube channel? Send a link to dseidel@piscatawaynj.org for review.
New Content: Mayor’s Summer Concert: The Infernos – WoodbridgeTV Aging Insights 119 – NJAAW
NEW CONTENT ON WEBSITE- We have now posted 24 programs from the Eastern Video Expo events to the members only section of our website. To view the video content links below, you need a members only password.
Emaillbesink@gmail.com for the password.
Lighting isn’t for exposure – it’s for communication: Dave Landau, Cinematographer, lighting director Sponsored by DeSisti
Storytelling from Concept to Completion: Joe Lavine, Emmy award winning director/producer and Ouisie Shapiro, Emmy award-winning writer/producer
Interviewing Techniques: Budd Mishkin, Broadcast Journalist and William Weinbaum, digital journalist and producer ESPN
Marketing with Social Media: Sabrina Teekah, Producer & Host of “Now or Never” and Cyd Katz, Founder/CEO New Jersey Isn’t Boring
Editing Techniques in Storytelling: Joshua Vorensky, Emmy-Award Winning Associate Producer with ESPN Paul Moessl, Film and TV Composer and Diego Martini, Emmy Award Winning Editor at ESPN
Share the value of Jag’s newsletter with your elected officials, cable committee, station volunteers, associates, and
Share the value of Jag’s newsletter with your elected officials, cable committee, station volunteers, associates, and friends. Send this invitation: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/B7EMU1R/JAGnewsletter
Posted: August 31, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Member Spotlight: The New Post-Pandemic Normal Or You Want Us to Do What??
by Cindy Hahn, Executive Director, C-NET
Here’s my big confession: I do not like technology. I don’t trust it, I don’t enjoy it, and I generally believe that things work better without it. But I am running a PEG organization…..so I naturally deal with it.
Things were going just swimmingly at C-NET prior to March of 2020. Our tiny staff and crew of Penn State interns were traveling around the County with cameras, microphones and an array of other equipment to cover the meetings of sixteen different entities — Seven municipalities, two school districts, the County government, a regional Council of Governments, three regional Authorities, the local Library and Penn State. We produced over 500 programs in 2019.
Then, of course, everything changed. And for many months, it was a matter of producing the best programs we could utilizing Zoom. “Can you hear me now?”, “Please mute yourself” and “Your cat is in the way” became the phrases of our life.
And now, everything has changed again. Elected officials and members of the public have decided that they like attending meetings on their couch in their pajamas, and so what now? The dreaded HYBRID meetings. For the last three months or so, C-NET has been tasked with helping various government and regional organizations figure out how to allow elected officials, board representatives and the public to participate in meetings both physically in a meeting room and virtually.
This means, of course, that everyone must be able to see and hear each other AND C-NET needs to obtain audio and video from both the room and the virtual platform. This would be a reasonable challenge if all sixteen meeting rooms had the same audio systems, etc., but they do not. Some of the rooms in which we work include installed mounted cameras and audio systems with reliable wireless internet. Other meeting rooms have no installed technology at all.
The result has been a myriad of different solutions. For meetings in the State College Borough Council Chambers, we are live switching between a Zoom feed and the mounted cameras in the room. The in-person participants are seeing the Zoom feed on the mondopad and hearing the audio through the Borough’s audio system.
We are using a Meeting Owl in several of the meeting rooms in which we work. This relatively inexpensive (less than $1,000) device uses a 360 degree camera and microphone to provide a view of the room and audio to and from the people in the meeting room and the Zoom participants. The Owl works particularly well in smaller meeting rooms.
A third configuration includes a lap-top camera and a high-quality exterior microphone to provide video and audio to Zoom participants, while the Zoom video is projected onto a screen in the room. In this case, C-NET live switches between the Zoom feed and our single camera. This has proved to be the most problematic of the various solutions.
Another interesting outcome of the pandemic is that the public’s tolerance for a single camera panning between speakers is lessening. Virtual meeting platforms allow the speaker to be instantly highlighted on the screen, and we are finding that the public expects this to be the case with in-person production as well. To assist with this challenge, C-NET has recently purchased a Rushworks VDESK Compact PTZ Production and Streaming System as an affordable way to turn more meetings into multi-camera productions. More switching…..less panning.
I want to give a shout-out at this point for the annual JAG Eastern Video Expo. It was, of course, unfortunate that the Expo was cancelled in 2020 and had to be virtual in 2021, but the challenges brought about by the pandemic are precisely why this type of collaborative group conference is so valuable. For the most part, PEG stations have small staffs and modest budgets, and reinventing the wheel takes time and money. Talking to others who are facing the same challenges and issues helps everyone. We network, we learn, and we form relationships that will help us down the road. I’m very much looking forward to the next Expo!
C-NET is fortunate to have the financial support of the sixteen organizations that we serve. And we are committed to finding and designing solutions to meet the changing needs of their staffs and the public. Hybrid meetings and changes in the public’s expectations are here to stay. So while I don’t like technology, I am fortunate that the rest of the wonderful C-NET staff is talented, creative and willing to go the extra mile for our community.
C-NET is Centre County’s Government and Education Access Television Network. C-NET administers two channels, CGTV (channel 7) and CETV (channel 98) on the Comcast and Windstream Cable Systems. All of C-NET’s locally produced programming is available to view on-line, on-demand at cnet1.org. C-NET’s programming ranges from public meetings to high school sports, concerts, and local festivals. A C-NET member agency must sponsor each program that airs on the channels. There are currently 16 members: Bellefonte Area School District, Bellefonte Borough, Centre County Government, Centre Region Council of Governments, the Centre Region Parks and Recreation Authority, College Township, Ferguson Township, Halfmoon Township, Harris Township, Patton Township, Penn State University, Schlow Centre Region Library, State College Area School District, State College Borough, the State College Borough Water Authority, and the University Area Joint Authority.
Posted: August 31, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Understanding Broadband Grants
by Ken Fellman, Of Council, Helmer, Conley and Kasselman, PA
As Americans have spent a significant amount of time on the internet during the pandemic, the federal government has created several programs addressing broadband deployment. Here, we address two major Congressional initiatives that provide significant funding to expand broadband networks. On March 11th, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan (ARP), which allocates funding to state, county, and municipal governments, and establishes that state and local governments receiving this funding may use it “to make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.” As of this writing (August 12, 2021), the House will be considering the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by the Senate, which establishes a $42,450,000,000 grant program to states who in turn award subgrants to local governments and other entities for broadband and other infrastructure projects.
On May 11th, the Treasury Department released interim regulations describing the allowable use of ARP funds. These regulations define “broadband infrastructure” as infrastructure designed to provide service to unserved or underserved households and businesses that reliably meets or exceeds symmetrical 100 Mbps speeds. [1] The regulations also define “unserved and underserved households or businesses” as one or more households or businesses that are not currently served by a wireline connection that reliably delivers at least 25 Mbps download speed and 3 Mbps upload speed. Thus, local governments may use ARP funding to provide broadband infrastructure to households that do not currently receive reliable service of at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds, so long as that broadband infrastructure is designed to reliably support symmetrical 100 Mbps speeds.
These regulations also provide flexibility to local governments: “Understanding that States, territories, localities, and Tribal governments have a wide range of varied broadband infrastructure needs, [these regulations] provide award recipients with flexibility to identify the specific locations within their communities to be served and to otherwise design the project.” The Treasury Department notes that local governments have the discretion to determine whether 25/3 Mbps service is being “reliably delivered” in an area, and the discretion to determine whether ARP funds may be expended on improving broadband infrastructure in that area.
To receive ARP funding, counties and metropolitan cities (municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more) must request money directly from the Treasury Department; smaller cities (which the ARP calls “non-entitlement units of local government” or “NEUs”) receive ARP funding from their state. To apply for funding, local governments must have a valid DUNS number as well as an active registration with the federal government’s System for Award Management (SAM) database. According to the Division of Local Government Services of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (the “Division”), funds for NEUs are distributed through the State Treasury. These local governments must execute an Award Terms and Conditions Agreement and submit a Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Distribution Request and Certification Form to the Division to request payment. Unlike ARP funding to state and local governments, the Infrastructure Act (assuming the House approves it without major changes) will create a grant program run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for broadband projects. NTIA will award grants to states who will then award subgrants to local governments and other political subdivisions for broadband projects. 10% of this grant money is set aside for high-cost areas based on the proportion of unserved locations in high-cost areas in the state compared to those in all states, with the remaining amount allocated to states based on the proportion of unserved areas in the state relative to the unserved areas in all states. [2] The Act defines “unserved location” as a broadband-serviceable location that either has no access to broadband service or lacks access to 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload service. States may award subgrants for a variety of reasons, including unserved and underserved areas, connecting eligible community anchor institutions like public housing authorities and healthcare providers, and for broadband project planning and data mapping.
[1] In areas where it is not practicable to build out networks that meet these speeds for reasons such as excessive cost or geography or topography of the area, the network must meet or exceed 100 Mbps download speed and between 20 Mbps and 100 Mbps upload speed and be scalable to 100 Mbps symmetrical.
[2] States must apply for funding; if a state fails to apply, a political subdivision or consortium of political subdivisions of the state may apply instead.
Posted: August 26, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Conference Review: 2021
by Dustin Dumas, Station Manager, South Orange Maplewood Television
The 2021 Eastern Video Expo conference was designed to bring the media community together to learn and share and this year it was virtual. As the station manager for South Orange Maplewood Television, I was looking forward to attending to learn and share ideas of best practices as well as see what the vendors offered for our small station and, of course, attend the JAG Awards!
The Expo did not disappoint and despite not being able to meet the other attendees in person, the virtual aspect did not hinder learning and connecting with the community.
Technical
From a technical aspect, the Expo was well-run. The main room and the breakout rooms were easy to access and the chat function within those rooms allowed for participants to engage with speakers and ask questions. Engaging was one of the biggest concerns I had when considering attending this virtual conference. I wanted to be able to fully participate and not just listen to speakers disseminating information to me. Due to the technology, there was minimal lag with speakers and audience questions were addressed in a timely manner since there was a dedicated person taking questions for the speakers. This was a good move as I have attended other online conferences where the speaker has had to both field and answer questions and this had not been done very smoothly. The technical organization of this aspect of the Expo made it much more interesting to attend virtually and be better able to engage with the speakers.
Affinity Lunch: Social Media
I was fortunate to be asked to co-host the Social Media Affinity Lunch and speak on social media and how it is best used to engage your audience. This was a great example of sharing knowledge as well as learning from attendees. The information shared was useful to attendees just starting with social media as well as those who were knowledgeable about social media. The combination of different levels of social media experience allowed everyone to participate. For example, one attendee was just venturing into social media and had specific questions on getting started. The open roundtable discussion allowed for several people to share their experiences with different platforms instead of just the two co-hosts. This type of interaction among the group was helpful in enabling everyone to learn.
JAG Awards
Given that the entire expo was virtual this year, I was curious as to how the JAG Awards would be presented. The awards presentation turned out to be upbeat and fun. While the awards were being presented in each category, it was nice to have each winner be able to give a short speech in real time. Although we were not physically in the same room, the use of Zoom helped create an awards ceremony that was both lively and fun for everyone involved. The addition of the red carpet event allowed everyone to show a little bit of flair of how they would walk the carpet. The red carpet was entertaining and creative since some took the traditional path of walking the red carpet while others chose to celebrate the red carpet in other ways from their offices. Given the limitations of having a virtual awards show, the JAG Awards turned out great!
The 2021 Eastern Video Expo conference covered many topics this year, more than I have space to cover in this column, but suffice it to say that this year’s expo was a good way to share ideas, learn and network with others in the industry. I learned many things that I will be able to take back to my home station and share with our producers and, in general, help create better programming.
While I look forward to meeting again in person, the virtual aspect of the conference did not deter attendees from being able to learn and, in fact, allowed me to attend more panels since it only involved me Zooming into another room.
Posted: August 23, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Social Media Stats – August, 2021
by Doug Seidel, Social Media Manager, External Relations Committee
I have been busy updating our JAGonline.org website, this is going to be a big improvement. I won’t spoil all of the surprises but you will notice the change when you see it. This update will fix some issues like the slideshow on the homepage, and improve the formatting of things like the logos for our organizational members. Things will fit better on the pages and links to other pages will be easier to find. I am pretty excited about this update (especially because it will make my life easier to update the site) and hope to share the site with you all sometime in September! In the meantime if there is anything you want to see improved on the website, or if you have updated information about your content on the website (i.e. station address, contact e-mail) send that information to dseidel@piscatawaynj.org so we can make this site even better.
Jersey Access Group
facebook.com/pegtv
linkedin.com/company/jersey-access-group
instagram.com/jersey_access_group
EASTERN VIDEO EXPO
facebook.com/Easternvideoexpo
instagram.com/easternvideox/
Do not forget to check out our YouTube channel Have something you want on our YouTube channel? Send a link to dseidel@piscatawaynj.org for review.
New Content:
Mayor’s Summer Concert – WoodbridgeTV
Meet the Mayor – SOMATelevision
Aging Insights 119 – NJAAW
Posted: August 12, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Closed Captioning and Workflow Considerations for PEG Broadcasters
By Jesse Lerman, President and CEO, TelVue Corporation
With accessibility gaining momentum both as a core mission and a compliance requirement, Closed Captioning is top of mind for Community Media broadcasters, and modern technology has made captioning affordable. As you move towards making your channels and programming accessible, what are the technology and workflow tradeoffs to consider?
Before reviewing some of the workflow considerations, let’s look at the two main types of captioning technologies available. Human captioning, where humans are scheduled to listen to the program audio and type out the captions, or Artificial Intelligence (AI) captioning, where audio is processed by computer programs and speech is automatically transcribed – also known as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) or Speech-to-Text (STT). Human captioning is highly accurate, but resource intensive and comes with a hefty price tag. AI captioning is automatic, highly scalable, with 80-90s % accuracy, and orders of magnitude more affordable.
For AI-based captioning solutions, the algorithms may run on dedicated hardware on-premise, or in the cloud. Cloud Speech-to-Text services have gone mainstream with major cloud computing providers including Google, IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft all offering services, as well as specialty providers. For both human and cloud-based AI captioning, it is common to stream audio and text over the Internet between the station and the cloud for processing. Audio and text are both low bandwidth, so this can easily be done reliably and with minimal latency.
Hardware captioning solutions can be quite expensive, with very high start-up capital expense in the $50k range. They also typically require caption encoders, which can easily cost an additional $4k to $6k per channel.
There is a growing trend in broadcast towards all-in-one systems, that simplify workflow, reduce complex integration points between varied systems, save money, extra rack space and power, and make support easier with one point of contact. Integrating captioning directly with playout and automation helps save money by eliminating the need for dedicated captioning hardware and traditional captioning encoders. Such integrated systems can provide hooks for using both AI captioning engines and human captioning. While AI captioning is so much more affordable and continues to get better, there may be times where specific events require the accuracy of human captioning.
For both human and AI captioning, quality audio with minimum background noise, and clear dialog without too many simultaneous speakers are all important for accuracy. AI captioning supports advanced features such as Custom Language Models to improve accuracy that allows configuring a list of commonly spoken names, words, and phrases so the automatic captioning knows what to expect. For example, a list of Council Member names for meetings.
Tightly integrating captioning directly with playout & automation streamlines captioning workflow, enabling:
Tight integration also allows for cost savings when combined with AI captioning engines and usage-based pricing by captioning unique programming only. Offline files and live events are processed once, saving the captions for replays. If you take replays and CBB out of the equation, you will likely find that your yearly usage-based caption cost will be extremely affordable. Grants and Sponsors for captioning can further offset costs.
AI captioning can also be used to solve more nuanced caption workflow challenges, such as Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) in which case there may be two separate audio tracks that both need captioning in different languages, or using AI language Translation services to present captioning in multiple languages. For live events on Cable, that could mean CC1 in English, and CC2 in Spanish, even if there is only one English-only audio track. For streaming & OTT, that could be any of 100+ languages you select that are important to your community.
Captioning your programming opens up additional benefits beyond accessibility. Once you have captions available, the caption transcript text can be useful as searchable metadata. Viewers of your on-demand programming can search the captions to find specific topics of interest in your meetings and programming, and drill right to that part of the video. Some AI captioning also supports Speaker Diarization that automatically detects and tags each individual speaker, potentially useful for meetings and transcripts.
TelVue recently launched SmartCaption™ LIVE to make captioning for Community Media broadcasters easy and affordable. SmartCaption integrates directly with the TelVue HyperCaster, no additional equipment required, providing the many all-in-one benefits. SmartCaption also supports a standalone server for simple integration with other playout systems, offering many of the same workflow and automation advantages. In both cases, usage-based pricing leveraging modern, AI-based captioning helps you control your costs and makes multi-language captioning ultra-affordable for live and offline captioning supporting both broadcast and streaming/OTT workflows.
Captions generated with SmartCaption are also compatible with TelVue CloudCast that displays captions in the web player, mobile (iOS & Android), and OTT apps (Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV). The CloudCast web player and mobile apps support Caption Transcript Search to make your meetings searchable, and captions can be translated to over 100 languages to allow viewers to select their language of choice. Captions can be embedded in broadcast files as standard CEA-608/708 in Connect for JAG Media Exchange sharing. SmartCaption also offers a powerful, cloud-based caption editor when quickly touching-up existing captions is required.
Now is a great time to start captioning your programming for accessibility and to better serve everyone in your community. The pricing for captioning is finally PEG-friendly, there are numerous options available, and the technology is ready for prime-time.
Posted: August 4, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Eastern Video Expo 2021 reinforces my idea that ZOOM is a good tool.
J Robertson, Managing Director – Ho’ike Kauai Community Television, Hawaii
When you choose to attend a community media conference you hope to be informed, engaged, inspired, and amazed.
For more than a decade I have had the unique pleasure of attending the annual JAG Conference known as the Eastern Video Expo. That experience has introduced me to new technology, production equipment, familiarity with vendors, skill development, political public policy practices, and a truly rewarding association with the people who regularly attend the gathering. Each year I look forward to a trip from the Garden Isle to the Garden State.
For the better part of the past year and a half life has transitioned to a not so realistic ZOOM life. Every Board meeting is on ZOOM, every council meeting, every community meeting, every family gathering and more. Life became a bunch of little boxes in a grid with mute buttons, screen shares, and a litany of background screens. Yes, I’ve seen your living room. One ends up blurry eyed with a migraine. Often these meetings are back-to-back on a never-ending cycle. The use of ZOOM has been a boon for communication and a tedious intrusion into time and space. It is also fraught with technical issues, failures, frozen panes, and bad connections. With an average of 5 ZOOM meetings a week and sometimes more the experience has been varied.
The Eastern Video Expo 2021 has reinforced my idea that ZOOM can and is a good tool. Being familiar with programs and virtual conferences for a while it was immediately apparent that the technical side of the Expo was in excellent hands. Doug Seidel over at Piscataway Community Television is remarkable. I watched as he juggled several simultaneous meetings, brought together social gatherings, managed the awards program, facilitated panels and the never-ending demand to add content via either video or power point. It was flawless. It was superb and the best technical display of pulling pieces together I have experienced. Doug and his team did an exemplary job in production. And for that matter the entire conference committee delivered an outstanding conference in all aspects. The topics, the panelists and the presentations were some of the best nationwide. Another impressive element was the knowledgeable and well-prepared moderators of each session. They continually fostered a cohesive discussion without straying off course.
The ability to execute the programs meant a meaningful experience at the conference. The knowledgeable panelists were showcased in the best fashion. The transitions were supremely smooth. The audio came through loud and clear. It was so perfect the attendees didn’t even notice, that’s how good it really was. One of the more interesting experiences was sitting on my lanai in Hawaii (yes early in the morning) listening to an outstanding music composer describe editing and sound while in England – brought together by folks in New Jersey. And it is true that a panel I participated in started at 4am Hawaiian Time but that was fun considering the other members of the panel and the attending audience.
The best part of this conference is each and every one who attends, along with access to the best vendor selection. This conference brings people together with an emphasis on delivering valuable information and access to the developing technology. All made possible by the Conference Committee and the JAG Leadership.
This conference brought back so many wonderful memories of years past while getting to reconnect with my dear friends in the JAG organization and the conference planning group. To see and speak with vendors was terrific. It was also a platform to thank those vendors who kept us running with advanced technology while taking the pandemic head on. I miss the annual trek to New Jersey, the friends I’ve made through the years, the associations, and the loads of fun during the events. It is my true hope to attend the 2022 Eastern Video Expo in person to continue to build these relationships, learn more, and experience the wonderful nature of the people of the Jersey Access Group.
Posted: July 30, 2021 by Doug Seidel
Designed to be a professional production space
By Adam Goldberg, Chief Engineer, Broadcast and Media Operations, College of the Arts, Montclair State
The School of Communication and Media Building (SCM) on the campus of Montclair State University opened in September of 2017. Designed to be a professional production space for the school’s TV, Film, Radio, and communications programs, the building hosts a variety of productions spaces.
These include:
All of these spaces are interconnected to each other via a central video/audio/data Evertz Router. All use one RTS Adams Intercom system.
The facility is also connected to the LTN network. This allows us to send signals and receive live videos from around the world. As a result we’ve hosted uplinks for NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, PIX, NPR, BBC, and private events.
The building’s second floor is primarily dedicated to audio production. The state of the art facilities center on a 24-channel ProTools audio recording studio and a 16 channel ProTools Foley studio with multi-surface substrate floor, gravel/dirt pit and splash pool. The audio area also features 4 small ProTools post-production rooms for editing.
Just adjacent to the audio area of the building is the campus radio station WMSC, consisting of an On-Air live 24/7 room, prerecord productions room, and overflow talk room. The station can be heard locally on 90.3 FM, and internationally via wmscradio.com. WMSC is also streaming live on the iHeart Radio App as one of a few select college radio stations to be allowed onto the platform.
There is also a 35 seat private movie theater with a 4K DCP projection system and 16-speaker 7.1 surround sound system available for film screenings.
To support these facilities and the roughly 200 classes per semester offered by the School of Communications there are 5 computer labs ranging from 16 to 31 seats per room. All the labs are preloaded with Avid Media Composer, Avid ProTools, Adobe Creative Suite, Davinci Resolve, AutoCad and Vectorworks, just to name a few. The school offers class in Audio/Sound Design, Communication and Media Arts, Communication Studies, Documentary, Journalism, Filmmaking, Public Relations, Sports Media and Journalism, Television Production, Fundamentals of Speech, and a MA program in Public and Organizational Relations. More information on classes and degree programs can be found at: montclair.edu/school-of-communication-and-media/
There are also three additional mediated classrooms in the building used mostly for lecture courses for the Communication Studies and Public Relations programs. The building is also connected to other buildings on campus via dark fiber. Directly adjacent to the building is Morehead Hall where the academic offices are for the School of Communications and Media. The connection to this building allows us to send and receive multiple video signals between the two buildings, creating an interlink between the offices, conference rooms and two mediated classrooms with the production spaces in SCM.
The production spaces are also connected to two theaters on campus. Kasser Theater is a 500-seat professional theater. Seven PTZ cameras permanently mounted in the theater connect back to the production facilities in SCM. Additionally, there are video, audio, and intercom connections between the two facilities allowing the spaces to be fully interconnected for production. We are currently about to go into our third season of recording and producing shows in conjunction with MSU Peak Performances. (peakperfs.org)
Memorial Auditorium, the second theater on campus, seats 1000. Currently, the fiber run between our two facilities allows us to bring in studio cameras and additional support equipment in order to cultivate the theater into a production space.
We have also run fiber connections to the campus football field where other events are captured and/or streamed live, including Montclair’s annual graduation ceremonies. This past June, due to Covid-19 restrictions, we streamed 19 ceremonies over a one week span with 4 studio cameras, jib, 3 PTZ cameras and one wireless roaming camera all switched and streamed live.
In addition to supporting the classes and other university initiatives, the building is also available for third party rentals. Our clientele list includes ABC, NBC, CBS, Google and Telemundo. We also do several recurring talk shows for local politicians in the area. We provide clients with a variety of rental packages ranging from a full technical crew provided by MSU, a mix of MSU and client crew, and space-only rentals. This is a great opportunity for our students to work side-by-side with industry professionals. In all three scenarios MSU provides engineering support to ensure the equipment and spaces are operating correctly.
In the past we’ve also rented facilities to Netflix and independent film makers, and hosted gubernatorial debates, film screenings, town hall meetings and private events. We were even honored to host a lecture by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg soon after the building was open.
More information about the building and rental areas can be found at: montclair.edu/bmo