As many of you are aware, we've had some difficulties with our cable coverage of County Board meetings. The cable company has been helpful, but we still haven't been able to get the meetings on each time. The cable company is coming in to do a test this afternoon. Hopefully we'll have no problems tonight.
The meeting will be broadcast on Channel 21.
At the request of County Board members and others, we've changed our camera location to give viewers a little more to look at then Steve Beckett's five o'clock shadow. Let us know what you think.
Remember, our coverage is done on the cheap. Our digital camera I believe is under $2,000. The city of Champaign I believe spent over $100,000 to set up their filming system, which of course is excellent.
Yes, I'm at work.
I hope you were on break, because I don't pay you to post on Illini Pundit.
Even if Mark had to punch a time-card for forty-hours-per-week (which he doesn't), discussing official business as it relates to the Clerk's office with a media outlet is certainly legitimate official business.
Mark, how much time do you spend at work after your 40 hours a week? You really don't have to answer, just consider comp. time.
...because I don't pay you to post on Illini Pundit.
Anonymous 11:11, You don't pay Mark at all, unless you're the County Treasurer, just like you don't pay Steve Ballmer just because you buy software created by MicroSoft. If you disagree, then I challenge you to fire Ballmer because Windows failed and locked up your computer.
Mark, with the amount corruption we see in every level of politics these days, I've pretty much soured on most of our elected officials. That being said, I can honestly say that I appreciate the way you approach your job with serving the citizens of Champaign County first and foremost. You're doing a great job, keep up the good work.
Now, if you could get one of the local broadcast stations, WCIA, WICD or WILL, to broadcast the meetings on one of their digital sub-channels, (i.e. 3.3, 15.2 or 12.3 ), those of us who don't have cable could view the meetings and the broadcasters would be providing a service for the community.
I believe Mr. Shelden eventually intends to broadcast the meetings over the Internet. At this time the County is in the process of obtaining a higher speed connection to the Internet that will help facilitate this operation.
Just to update - we tested the equipment shortly before 4 p.m. and everything was working on channel 21. And Tim is correct, the goal is to have meetings live on the net as well.
Is it on the Clerk's website? I can't seem to find it.
http://www.champaigncountyclerk.com/county_board/meetings/2007_meetings/index.html
Scroll down to October 18.
Thanks, John. Every time I view one of the videos, it gives me a fatal error nearly half-way through and makes me restart my browser (FireFox). I have the most recent versions of FireFox and the Flash player. Any way to reduce the quality and make the file smaller, or ... ? There must be a decent compression algorithm out there. Not sure how to fix it, but I'd like to make it through a whole meeting. Glad you're posting them.