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Equipment Upgrades

Can Zane Justify His Wish-List?

Last week, Zane Blaney had Arnel send this email out to some Access SF Producers and Volunteers. In another act of discrimination against me, Zane had me removed from the Access SF mail lists for members, producers, and volunteers. Thanks go out to those recipients who had the forethought of forwarding me a copy of Zane's email. It is so rare for Zane to reach out (unless funding is at risk), that I (Michael Faklis) thought his email deserves a translation.

From: "AccessSF Executive Director"
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 5:22 PM
Subject: Equipment Upgrades

For many months Access SF has been working on an equipment upgrade list which was recently submitted to the City and County of San Francisco. we are hopeful the City will use some of the $1.1 million per year it is now receiving from Comcast Cable for PEG channel capital grants to fund our request which includes the following:

Access SF does need some funding for equipment, but this request is somewhat bloated. What Access SF really needs is for SFCTC to abide by the SFCTC Grant Agreement with the City and Country of San Francisco and maintain, insure, and allocate the equipment we already have. That $1.1 million per year is for all public access educational, and government stations.

An upgrade for the Access SF playback automation system which will allow the programming and scheduling of a 2nd public access channel including a robust and reliable server that will accommodate digital files.

Read my article on the need for a Second Public Access Channel. What would Zane program on a second channel when our current channel is so sparsely programmed? The equipment we already have is capable to running a second channel. We already paid for a "reliable server to accommodate digital files" when we moved to the current facilities, but Zane has neglected to get the vendor to deliver on that contract.

Internet streaming and Video-on-Demand equipment.

I believe Access SF should be simulcasting on the Internet. I also believe we should support streaming-on-demand. I've worked on this problem at Access SF for many months, and I suspect that Zane doesn't want to stream producer programs. Zane only wants to stream in-house programming that he controls.

4 Final Cut Pro nonlinear editing systems.

Producers do need some non-linear editing systems, but before we purchase four more, let's use the two we already have. Access SF already has a Non-Linear Editing Avid Workstation which was purchased by a private grant specifically for the producers. Zane has not allowed this existing workstation to be used by producers, and even directed staff to not discuss its very existence. That machine is used only by selected staff members and it's been rented out to outside organizations. Access SF already purchased an iBook to teach iMovie, but that machine became Marc Smolowitz's personal computer.

A DVD duplicator and upgraded user dubbing equipment.

Why do we need a DVD duplicator, when we have no DVD playback capability? We already have multiple DVD recorders, only one of which is assessable to producers. Many of you have seen the Sony DVD recorder in the main studio control room. Producers can use this during a studio reservation, or when the studio is not reserved. It can duplicate DVDs. You may remember the old defective Phillips DVD recorder we used to have there. What you may not know is that Access SF has a second matching Phillips DVD recorder that works perfectly, but was never made available to producers. It's part of the Avid edit suite that producers are not allowed to know about.

Zane does want to upgrade the user dubbing station, but not because it'll benefit producers, but because he wants to demand that all shows be submitted on DVCAM tape. Before he can make that move and outlaw MiniDV, VHS, S-VHS, DVD, and digital, he must provide the capability for producers to dub their own shows to DVCAM for payback.

4 PD 170 field cameras for user check out.

Access SF already has four "new" Sony PD170 cameras as part of the Mobile Access Studio that producers are not allowed to use. These cameras have been sitting on the shelf since October 2004, and went out of warrantee before their first and only use for last November's League of Women Voters debates. They have not been used since, and Zane refuses to make them available for user use. Although producers have not been allowed to use these cameras, they have been used by some staff members for personal non-Access SF projects.

New 3 chip color cameras for the Flash Studio.

Most anyone who uses the Flash studio can tell you that it has inferior quality cameras. When the Flash studio was build, SFCTC purchased inexpensive web-conference quality remote controlled cameras. Some producers have seen an immediate improvement to their shows when they connected their own (or field) cameras. Although better cameras would be nice in the Flash studio, would the investment be worth it, considering the Spartan conditions of that studio's decor?

Replacement and upgrades for office and production computer systems.

No doubt about it, the Access SF computer infrastructure needs to be improved. The hardware is not the problem. The problem is that it hasn't been maintained and administered properly. Throwing hardware at the problem is not the solution. SFCTC has prematurely retired workstations and printers just so Zane and Aaron could have new toys, while mission critical workstations have been allowed to suffer under Windows 98. Remember all of those Facil database losses last year when we kept on losing reservations? Why was the mission-critical Facil reservation database on a Windows 98 computer? Why wasn't the database backed up? Why did we have repeated failures before that problem was addressed?

Replacement of monitors, routers and other equipment which have reached their life expectancy.

SFCTC is obligated by the SFCTC Grant Agreement with the City and Country of San Francisco to fully maintain and insure all of the facility's equipment. SFCTC is required to have a full-time staff engineer, yet it takes weeks and sometimes months to get minor maintenance because we only have a part-time engineer that is around few hours a month. Why should a tape drive be down for 6 weeks just because a tape got stuck? Why should a monitor go down permanently when it just needs a replacement power supply? It's not so much that our equipment is too old, but that it's not maintained. SFCTC does not budget for maintenance and insurance, even though it's mandated by the SFCTC Grant Agreement with the City and Country of San Francisco.

We are now on record with the City in laying out the short-term technical needs of the station. As part of the cable franchise renewal process Access SF provided the City with detailed information on long-term technical upgrades and requirements. It's up to the City to decide how much capital support they will provide for public access and when that will happen.

Before the SF Board of Supervisors grants more public moneys to SFCTC for capital acquisition, they should exercise some oversight and see how poorly SFCTC has been managing the existing assets. The SF Board of Supervisors needs to exercise oversight first, and find out why so much equipment purchased with public funds and private grants that was intended for the producers are kept away from those San Francisco resident producers and volunteers. The SF Board of Supervisors needs to exercise oversight and make SFCTC answer for their violations to the SFCTC Grant Agreement with the City and Country of San Francisco.

Zane Blaney, Executive Director
San Francisco Community Television Corporation (CTC)
Access San Francisco, Cable Channel 29
415-575-4943 - Direct
415-575-4945 - FAX
zane@accessf.org

I'm sure that anyone visiting and reading this web site believes in and supports public access television. That doesn't mean that we agree that the City and County of San Francisco should continue supporting Zane Blaney and SFCTC's ongoing mismanagement of Access SF.

Please continue to demand answers from Zane and the SFCTC Board of Directors, and use the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance to gain access to the documents that will show you where the truth lies. Let their own documents speak for themselves. Also continue to send me copies of Zane's email so I can translate it for you.

Questions/Comments?