A weekly blog
from Tom Reeser, KOCT’s Executive Director
Big changes are
coming to the Oceanside Council Chambers when the council returns from summer
break for their August 10th, 5 pm meeting. The City’s IT Department has added new equipment
and technology. Back in 1981, Oceanside
was one of the first cities in San Diego County to videotape their meetings and
in the beginning it was accomplished by volunteers and City Staff members
working together in the old City Council chambers.
Here’s a
picture of how KOCT used to cover the meetings—three camera operators, a floor
director in the Council Chambers and a Director and Audio member out in the
City AV trailer—which was towed to and parked outside the old City Council chambers for each meeting.
All of the TV
monitors were in black and white, and no matter how we tried the Hitachi camera
pictures had a slight green tinge to them. In the early days the cable company
would only give KOCT 2 hours of air time-- so the floor director’s job was to
take notes so that the Editor could select the most popular or important agenda
items and edit the 4 hour meeting down to two hours. We then had to drive the
¾” U-Matic tape to the cable company for airing!
In the late 80’s
the cable company provided a channel for us to share with MiraCosta College and
we were able to air the entire council meetings—first as tape delayed and later
‘live’ as the meetings happened.
In 1989 Bob Bowditch, the founder of KOCT, and
Chief Engineer William ‘Mr. Bill’ Sinatra were excited about the new Civic
Center being built with plans that included a new larger room for City Council
meetings. However, they were aghast to discover that no plans had been included
to upgrade, improve or change how the council meetings were to be videotaped.
Anyone who knew Bob knows what happened next. Bob and Mr. Bill sat down over
many hurried weeks and designed the basic AV system structure of robotic
cameras, projector, audio and director’s console. Here is the last picture I
have of Bob Bowditch and Mr. Bill working on Chamber drawings at Bob’s Fire Mt.
home. Bob died from brain cancer before
he was able to see his final work in the new civic center.
The cameras
have been repaired and modified many times since then, but starting in August
all of the Robotics, Cameras and Directing equipment will be replaced with new
high-definition cameras and all digital equipment.
KOCT is working
with the City’s outstanding IT department who oversaw and implemented this
improvement to the City Council chambers. A big shout out of thanks to the
City’s Information Technology Department Manager Yukari Brown and IT Specialist
Dave Riha for their leadership on this project.
 |
| A look at the new system KOCT crew on site for training session |
Check out
the new look by watching the next meeting ‘live’, via replay or on the City’s
YouTube channel. Joint meetings of the Oceanside
City Council, Community Development Commission (CDC), and Harbor Board of
Directors are typically held on two Wednesdays of each month at 5:00 pm
and are broadcast live at KOCT-North County’s Channel 19 through Cox Cable or on AT&T’’s U-Verse
channel 99 channel. Replays can be
viewed the following Thursday at 2:00 pm, Saturday at 11:00 am, and Sunday at
5:00 pm
