On a whim I decided to live stream the City Council meeting to the web and from the way it turned out I would say the experiment was a success. Click here to see the recorded video.
I streamed the entire 3.5 hours of the meeting live to the web of which I recorded the full three hour limit of the free service I used. (The end of the meeting, including the conversations on Chickens was cut off and was not documented by me.) Because I was busy preparing the computer and camera, I forgot to do the audio device but will try to include those in the future as a backup.
I believe the video was acceptable but being the camera operator, I never pointed the wide angle camera lens directly around to see myself. (Probably a good thing but the wife pointed that fact out.)
The sound was mostly acceptable but I had the sound level set for voices about 6 feet away therefore when I spoke the sound was too loud and therefore garbled and full of static. I will need to find a way to correct the sound in the future.
Though I didn't push it, the statistics of the show state that there were a total of 23 total viewers of the live stream watching at some point during the broadcast. The joke was that the City Council wives made up the entire viewing bandwidth but I do know from looking at the chat page that Cathy Cobbs of the Dunwoody Crier and Rick Callihan of the Dunwoody Talk blog were online watching. I was also told that a few interested (scofflaw) chicken owners were also viewing on line since they were afraid to address the council directly for fear of immediate arrest (joking, sort of.).
The available chat and twitter live feeds of the meeting could be both entertaining and informative for the residents watching on-line as well as those live in the audience who could follow along. We will have to see what becomes of those features?
Though I didn't record the last 30 minutes of the meeting since there was a three hour limit. The beauty of this is that 95% the video is available to watch at any time. It also allows you to drag the time line to where you want to start.
A resident came up to me after the meeting and thanked me for doing the video because his wife was able to "be there" watching along with him.
Another resident stated that video was conceived for the council early in the planning of the city but the fear was that Council Members would purposely play to the camera. I'm not sure it would matter to a long winded council member if the meeting was recorded or not since he would probably act the same way when there was a reporter in the room; and between Dick from the Crier and Tom of the Dunwoody Neighbor we always seem to have a reporter in the room.
If you watch the video, I would be interested in your comments, both good and bad.
Thanks,
John
5 comments:
Good show; a little long winded. And the cast could use a new member or two (smile); but all in all, good show. Thanks for taking the time to set it up. Jack.
John,
Consult with city manager Warren on the microphone issue. He did a great job with the podium and table mics. I suggest a boundary microphone. Place it on the table beside your laptop (with a piece of foam under it). 2nd place would be a shotgun microphone, pointed at the podium. This would still pick up your voice, but not like the current mic did.
John,
Fantastic! Audio and video are both very good. I wanted to be at last night's meeting, but unfortunately couldn't make it. Thanks to your ingenuity, I feel like I was there!
Thx,
Bob
www.dunwoodyusa.org
Come on, John. "City Council wives..."? There is superb female representative on the Council, and she has a husband. You should have said "spouses". Don't know if she was there that night - doesn't matter.
Please be more sensitive to this issue - and this message is to other male members on the CC as well (not all though), because this is not the first time I have witnessed this kind of disrespect.
Councilwoman Bonser was absent and I was relaying the facts as they happened.
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