[UPDATE 12 March 2025] At the 12 March BOS meeting I could barley hear what was being said by Board members and commenters. Is this because I am old? No! At one point during the Manager's Report, I asked the audience if they could hear him. Several people indicated that they too had problems hearing what was being said. View the video: https://www.youtube.com/live/Yn1Fm1PQZ30?si=XLhM1I3ig_H-bdj6&t=3069
Meanwhile, the Township received a total of 4 proposals in response to the Video Production RFQ. It will put together a summary of the responses for distribution. My response: "Time to get rid of Video Fool's Gold! I await viewing the PDQ's that were sent in."
[UPDATE 25 February 2025] The Township Manager forwarded to BOS members an update from Video Gold - the township’s AV contractor: “We have completed a full systems test now with all the new components of video and audio. The testing was performed for the Video Switching for the Live Feed (Comcast & Verizon) and the recording for playback programming each week on those channels and the YouTube Live transmission and YouTube recording along with the DVD recording as back-up. We also calibrated to the public portion of the room speakers along with the New Dias speakers for the board”.
[UPDATE 30 January 2025] The Township Manager reports: "The two speakers that were intended to be mounted facing the dais (for the board to hear itself) need to be replaced with different speakers. We will be returning the original speakers (and other items) to Visual Sound (the vendor that we purchased everything through) for a refund. We will be ordering two different speakers from another vendor who is certified to install Bose equipment, who will do the installation/calibration, etc. Hopefully this can be resolved and completed by the end of February.'"
WHAT AN ADDITIONAL DISGRACE. The BOS Chair, Elen Snyder commented: "Can you tell me why the wrong speakers were ordered in the first place? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand this simple meeting room redo which could have been done by somebody that’s experience with this type of thing within months of when we issued the money to be spent to upgrade the room. Would we accept this type of work from anybody that we employ?"
I agreed wholeheartedly and added: "Does this have anything to do with the feedback issue? Not sure better speakers so we can 'hear ourselves' is a solution to THAT problem- after all, isn't sending sound back to the source the main cause of feedback? Just look it up on Google: 'Feedback is caused when the amplified sound is picked up by the microphone. So, by simply positioning your microphones behind the speakers [NOT IN FRONT] you can eliminate most feedback issues."
Meanwhile, the pausing of the Youtube video that I reported previously persists!
[UPDATE 23 Nov 2024 AND January 22, 2025] The pausing problem persisted in the original Youtube video archive of the 13 November 2024 BOS meeting (and January 22, 2025 meeting]. After I again notified the Township Manager of this continuing problem, a new version of the video was uploaded to Youtube. Although this version solved the pausing problem, it is a lousy, low resolution image and the sound has been dubbed in resulting in loss of alignment with lip movement – you know, like lousy foreign film voice overs! What a shame that our township does not have an AV company that can “chew gum and walk at the same time”; i.e., produce high-resolution Youtube videos with sound properly synched to the image! WHAT A DISGRACE!!!
[UPDATE 28 Oct 2024] I noticed that the videos of the last two BOS meetings (10/9/24 and 10/23/24) pause for a second or two every 30 seconds or so. This was very annoying as some comments were missing. I complained again noting that there was no quality control to prevent what should have been a known problem from continuing. It appears that the company responsible for our AV system – Video Gold – began testing the system after I complained. Note that the township is paying up to $125,000 to upgrade our system and it should not be up to me to blow the whistle on these problems!
[UPDATE 27 Sep 2024] I complained about this and it appears that the video was updated so that now the sound is better BUT the resolution is again a problem. Lores again! In addition, the format of the video does not fit the full size of the Youtube screen! This just proves to me that Video Gold, which handles the township’s AV, is, in my opinion, incompetent and we should get a new AV company! To date, we’ve paid Video Gold $110,257.80 to upgrade the township’s AV and this is what we get?
[UPDATE 25 Sep 2024] Finally, Newtown Township’s Youtube video resolution is now on a par with videos of other municipalities. You can now read the names of supervisors on the nameplates! HOWEVER, the sound quality is awful! I can hardly hear what’s being said. Tell me what you think:
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