Time for the Annual Studio Cleaning!

After the last show before the Media Center closed for the winter holiday on Thursday 12/23, we had the daunting task of clearing everything, and I mean EVERYTHING out of the studio for the yearly cleaning of the hardwood floors in the building to keep our studio floor looking the way it does! I took the liberty of shooting some stills of the final product so you all could see this unique set up!

Everything is gone!

Staff eating area

The empty prop area!

View from Dave's desk

Control Room

Main Hallway

Studio Lobby Outside Becky's Office

Major thanks to Production Manager Karen Adams, and volunteers Brian Good, Eric Baker, Steve Hall and Jan Foy for sticking around to help with the major reshuffling of furniture!

Wishing everyone in the Media Center community a wonderful winter holiday, and a Happy New Year!

Wes Rapaport

MC Intern/Volunteer

RUN GET YOUR DAILY POST NOW! Annie Folger et al Weigh in on AT&T U-verse

An Article By Diana Diamond in Today's Daily Post shines a light on how hard it is to find government meetings like the Palo Alto City Council via AT&T U-Verse. Fortunately AT&T is not the only game in town. We deliver government meetings to you via Comcast 26 and 29 in our service area and the meetings can be watched online as well from our website.

Bone up on the AT&T configuration by grabbing a copy of the Daily Post today. Our own Executive Director, Annie Folger is quoted in the article.

And check out this youtube clip to see how unwieldy the AT&T U-Verse system is. This can still be change, if people agitate for it!

Net Neutrality - Part 2

At what point will people agitate for Net Neutrality? After they notice that their wired services are being interfered with? When their connection is painfully slow or completely blocked from accessing some sites? When they are forced to pay for inferior services because the free and preferred service is blocked? Sounds like today's "cable service" doesn't it folks? Remember all the promises of yesteryear when Cable TV would be kept affordable? Do you remember paying $10/month and getting it all? I do!

Looks like the erosion of a free and open internet has begun in earnest. Among other negatives, FCC action yesterday is creating two Internets -- one for wired and one for wireless. Wireless services are poised to take a pounding here. So even though Obama promised us a free and open internet, looks like he's back pedaled a bit.

We try not to be political, but this is a real threat to our open society, folks! And being in the Media Business we can't help but be wary of the FCC action, which seems to have a lot in it to benefit big companies like AT&T. In fact, does anyone know who penned the existing legislation? If you want to get involved, it's never too late. You can see us for talking points and contact your congressional reps and the FCC. And educate yourself: here's a LINK to the clip from Democracy Now yesterday and their discussion of Net Neutrality.

And you can still sign Senator Al Franken's petition in favor of Net Neutrality.

Make some noise!

Today's Ruling on Net Neutrality Looks Like A Mixed Bag: Correct Me If I'm Wrong

Today, the FCC passed its first Internet regulations ever! This was a very important first vote in the fight over ownership of the airways, and you know we and other grassroots Media organizations were right in the middle of it.

We and 80 other organizations were signatories to a letter in early December in which we urged the FCC to:

1. Ban Paid Prioritization - if you pay more you get better access for your message.

2. Provide Adequate Protection for Wireless users - Don't let wired services "slow" down or cancel wireless signals that compete with their own services

3. Close loopholes - that allow ISPs to evade regulation

4. Don't partition the internet so that some paying aggregators are exempt from net neutrality laws

and

5. Establish its authority over Broadband Policy using established legal precedence in order to protect the rights of the consumer.

If you would like to see a full copy of the letter, please contact us.

Now, the new regulations resulting from today's vote which was split 3-2 along party lines will not be published until later this weeks, but the gist of the rulings are:

1. Wireless and Wired users can be treated differently. An ISP can contol your access. (This doesn't sound too good to me.)

2. Broadband providers can't block a legit Internet site or discriminate against it. (This sounds like a good thing to me.)

3. Providers can charge websites more for faster access but they are compelled to have full disclosure of how they operate.
(Disclosure is good, but charging more for better service - for what in some respects is like a public utility -- seems bad to me.)

4. The wireless phone arena seems a little unregulated which is good in some ways, but the FCC is not going to be the watchdog to make sure that mobile providers do not engage in unfair practices like blocking apps that compete with something the provider offers... except voice and video services are to be left untouched. (This can't be a good thing!)

What do you think? Let's revisit all of this when the text of the new regulations are published later this week.

Anyway, this was a big day for open media. Let's see how this all shakes out!

And by the way in another action, did you hear that LOW POWER RADIO STATIONS got a big boost? You can apply for a license for one and get one if you're a non-prof and can establish a good reason that you need to do a neighborhood broadcast! That's definitely a victory for access and open media. But I'll blog on that another time!

Video Tutorials

There are a number of places online where you can find video tutorials about video production and editing. I just got an email promoting the Vimeo Video School. There are many short tutorials on this site, ranging from choosing a camera, to creating slow-motion effects during editing. There are special tutorials for those who have the new DSLR cameras that shoot video and tutorials for people on a budget who want to make a special effect. If you test out the site, come back here to leave a comment on its pros and cons.

STATE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS TONIGHT - PALY v. Centennial

PALY High School Senior and most excellent MC Intern Wes Rapaport is in Carson right now "embedded" with the Paly Football team. He is covering the California Interscholastic Federation STATE FOOTBALL Championships. The Vikings square off tonight against Centennial High School in SoCal tonight at 7:30 pm. One of the teams will leave with a trophy tonight! Wes will be bringing us exclusive footage of the game, but the game itself can be watched LIVE tonight on Comcast Channel 41 here in Palo Alto.

Outside our service area, the game is also being televised by Fox Sports West and a live audio stream can be heard on KBC Sports.

PALY worked hard to get this far, delivering a 13 and O record and beating the private Catholic triumvirate powerhouses of Mitty, Bellarmine and Valley Christian to win its berth. On any given day, right? So let's plan on today being Paly's given day!

And good luck Wes! Remember as sideline camera operator, never turn your back to the field!

Curious About What Goes Into A Studio Show Production? Stan Ng Shows Us How!

Yesterday, studio volunteers under the direction of studio tech Matt Harnack produced the next episode of Fredrico's Kitchen, a cooking show. Fred focused on Big Meals for the holiday and demonstrated meals involving roast pork and roast chicken. Staff member Stan Ng volunteered as crew and prior to set up placed a flip cam up on the lighting grid and pressed "record". Watch the time lapse production right here. My favorite part is the crew and the studio audience storming the set to get hold of some of that pork and chicken the instant Director Bill Lindemann closed the show. One wonders how Stan has time to do all the stuff he does plus continue to do cool things like this for our benefit and enjoyment. You can see how fun it is to set up, light, produce and then break down the set for a half hour studio show. And if you want to see the show in real time and including the use of the fourth camera for demonstration purposed watch at these times: Channel 28, Wednesday 11 am and next Monday night, December 20 at 8 pm.

Foothill-DeAnza Community College District At It Again: Tradition of Innovation Excellence

Here is a link to a wonderful article in Palo Alto Online from Nick Veronin of the Mountain View Voice. The article touts the College Open Text Book Collaborative which makes no-to-low cost text books available to college students who often can ill afford the exorbitant costs associated with traditional college text books. The Collaborative was kick started by faculty members Barbara Illowsky and Susan Dean of De Anza who bought back the copyright to the Statistics text they co-authored in order to supply it digitally to their students who otherwise could not swing the cost. How about that? Anyway, it's just another example of how despite all the cutbacks and setbacks our embattled state education system is subjected to, individual action and activism will out.

The Collaborative which began in 2008 now offers 500 open texts at over 200 Community Colleges across the country. Is that inspiring or what? If you have a chance please read the article. We at the Media Center want to give Drs. Illowsky and Dean a warm thank you on behalf of the students in our community. They know you care when you go to such lengths. And thank you Nick for a thoughtful and encouraging article.

NEW STUDIO SESSION DEBUTS TONIGHT! Featured Instrument: The Harmonica!

The latest in the series of Studio Sessions produced by Production Manager Karen Adams debuts tonight at 10 pm on Channel 27 and replays tomorrow night on Channel 30 at 7:30 pm. This half hour music and interview program features the Harmonica Players of Channing House. This twenty strong chorale of harmonicists grew out of a harmonica class taught at the senior center Avenidas two and a half years ago. The students were so pleased with the playing and the friendships they formed they founded the Channing House Harmonica Players and now practice every Saturday morning. The average age of the harmonicists is 86 years old.

The players performed close to twenty favorites, particularly suited to the harmonica as they evoke the nostalgia of days gone by: Danny Boy, Cockles and Mussels, Bells of St. Mary, Good Night Ladies and so many more. This program is a veritable journey into America's folk heritage. Co-founders Barbara Browne and Joy Gee split the duties of directing the active group and are interviewed by host Judy Gittelsohn about the responsibilities and pleasures of running their organization.

Other members are interviewed including 93 year old Miriam Angus. Despite the challenges presented by the loss of her sight, Ms. Angus' joy at playing harmonica is palpable. It is obvious that the reason the music is so fun to listen to is because the players are enjoying it themselves.

Give yourself a gift this holiday season: watch this show! The simplicity of the music and the complexity of some of the arrangements will transport you out of your daily grind! We are really grateful to Robin Gee, Station Manager at CityTV, Santa Monica, one of our sister stations down the coast, for co-producing this wonderful program for us.

Click here to see additional playback times of the Channing House Harmonica Players. (Photos courtesy of Robin Gee.)

ONE MORE HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS BLOG - Just Can't Help It!

It was a great weekend for Paly Sports. Gotta love it when the Public Schools -- with all that they are up against financially these day -- shine on like they did this weekend.

On Saturday, The Paly VOLLEYBALL team clinched their first ever state title in a 5 set victory over Long Beach Poly in the CIF Division 1 State Championship. This has been a great season for the Paly team. They won the SCVAL De Anza Division title, CCS Division 1 title and the Norcal Championship Title to get to State. You can watch their CCS win over Menlo Atherton right on TV courtesy of the Media Center. Here's a link to Keith Peter's article on the Long Beach game in Palo Alto Online -- all the details are there!

And Paly Football knocked out the powerhouse West Catholic Athletic league - beating Mitty, Bellarmine and finally Valley Christian Friday night to clinch the CCS 1 Division title. The Bellarmine game can be watched right here on our station! It looks like Paly has earned a slot in the state playoffs the weekend of Dec 17. Here's a link to Tom Goode's article on Palo Alto online to read all about it.

Here's a link to PALY IN FOCUS - Paly's Video News Magazine. Wes Rapaport our own renown INTERN has posted several sports shorts up there so check them out as well.

I am HUGE sports fan when it comes to Youth. I tell ya I'd rather watch our local kids play then get an all expense paid trip to the Superbowl or the Olympics. I'm just a localite. Crazy about our community and proud of our kids. Great job, kids!