Re: PEG Gear

PEG channels typically have three things: most of all, coverage of
public committee type meetings/city council, as filler between live
meetings or replays of meetings, a billboard service with slide shows
of various community events and issues(like how to sign up for garbage
service, where to pay utility bills, regulations for the local aprks,
upcoming public events calendar, etc.), and "specials" like school
plays or ceremonies or custom-made programs like a tour of the city
landmarks or interviews with a historian, etc., if the PEG guys are
ambitious.

On the low end, the slide shows are handled by outputting a powerpoint
slide show to the channel's encoder. More sophisticated versions use
an mpeg playback system that does basically the same thing but can
also play motion video clips, as well as update live weather or other
info.

The public meetings are the biggest deal. If they are always in one
place, you probably want to permanently wire in mics, lights, and
camera drops. One camera coverage of more than three people is very
hard to watch becasuse it's either always locked down wide and the
folks are too small to see, or it's tromboning in and out trying to
follow the action and speakers, making you nauseous. The bare minimum
standard for such coverage is 2- camera live switched, where one
camera stays wide and the other gets various closeups. A third camera
would be nice to lock down on the podium where citizens stand and
address the counciI, usually with only 2 cameras it is hard to get
anything but the backs of heads from some angles. That camera can also
shoot the tote board when votes are taken. So the third cam helps a
lot to make a better presentation, but is not strictly necessary.

I say live switched is the only way to go from a practical standpoint
because council meetings go very long and trying to fake a multicam
edit in post for these will take foreve and cost you a lot of storage.
Also, people will not stand for a delay incoverage of government, they
demand the coverage is live and real-time when the meeting first
happens. As a courtesy, the PEG channel usually then runs repeats on a
staggered schedule to fit everybody's viewing schedules over the next
week or so.

If the meetings move to different spots, or the channel also has
ambitions to cover live events like a play or show, then you also need
the switcher, recorders, graphics, audio mixer and cameras to be
portable. Often the stuff is wired up into a single mobile cart that
can be stored in acloset or loaded into a van for transport, ready to
use. I think the Tricaster is a good fit for that situation on a
budget, because it really does include all the stuff like graphics,
audio control, even streaming to the internet. But it is not the only
solution. The new Panasonic HS400 looks pretty cool and can mix HDS
and SD sources and rudementary graphics.

Another consideration that was touched on is the staffing: full time
trained people, part-time amateurs, how many? Do you need the stuff to
be heavily automated? Can you have camera ops in the chambers or do
the cameras have to run by remote control?

Many times the audio is not thought thru well on these things, you can
forgive a bad picture if the sound is clear, but not the other way
around.

So there is a starting point for specific discussions.

.

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