Tim Showalter, Beech Grove Communications Director, shares his personal experiences starting up and later revamping Beech Grove?s Cable Access Television

1983-1987
Upon graduation from Ball State University in the spring of 1983 with a degree in Radio, Television and Motion Pictures, I accepted a job as the Cable Access Director for the city of Beech Grove, Indiana. I was happy to have a job, but have to admit that I really wasn?t sure what ?cable access? meant. Once I arrived at my job, I soon realized that the city I was working for really didn?t have any idea what ?cable access? was either. The city of Beech Grove had just signed a contract a year earlier with Indianapolis Cablevision to become the first provider of cable television to the city. Twice a month Indianapolis Cablevision (now Comcast) would show up with their production truck and broadcast the City Council Meetings. The meetings at the time were broadcast on Channel 16 and would interrupt C-Span for our local city council meetings. As soon as the meetings were over, the truck would pack up and leave until the next meeting. Beyond that, there really wasn?t any ?cable access? to speak of.

Beech Grove cable access TV studio, 1983.

I was given two large parking bays at city hall, which 55 years earlier housed the local Beech Grove Fire Department. The last 10 years it was mainly used for storage and as a warm place for cats to breed. I also discovered that the city was receiving cable franchise fees from Indianapolis Cablevision. This was money that Indianapolis Cablevision paid the city of Beech Grove for the use of their telephone poles and easements to run coaxial cable. With this money, video production equipment was purchased, a studio was constructed and before you knew it, programs were being produced.

The first year we continued to air the City Council and Board of Works meetings live twice each month. This was a bit of a problem since these programs were still only being aired on the C-Span channel, which meant that twice each month I had to travel to the Cablevision headquarters on the Northeast side of Indianapolis to pickup the modulator. After the meetings were over, I would have to take the modulator back so that it could be used for the Speedway City Council Meetings. Other programs were video taped (and crashed edited between two VHS recorders) and delivered to Cablevision to be scheduled and replayed from their location. If the program was a community based program, it would be aired on Cablevision Channel 3 throughout the county on their community channel. If the program was educational, it would be replayed on Cablevision Channel 6, which at the time was a non-assigned channel. (There was a good reason that cable Channel 6 was an unassigned channel since WRTV Channel 6 would bleed over onto this channel.) And if the program was Government programming and didn?t air live, it was replayed after midnight on the same channel as C-Span, cable channel 16.

This was a very frustrating time for Beech Grove Cable Access. It was very difficult to gain any true viewership from the community since programs were spread all over the dial and would air at strange hours during the day. And if you did happen to catch a program, there was a good chance that the ghost of Clyde Lee from WRTV News would overshadow the program you wanted to watch. To build a viewer base, I tried posting the program schedule in the local newspaper. My programs were always at the mercy of whoever was working the control room back at Indianapolis Cablevision on any given evening. Sometimes the programs would start on time, but would mysteriously end halfway through, or the show would run, but without any sound, and sometimes the program wouldn?t run at all.

Beech Grove cable access TV control room, 1983.

I soon realized that the only way to solve the problem was to control our own channel locally. It was evident from the beginning that Cablevision didn?t want to give up control of a channel and continued to make excuses as to why it wasn?t feasible. I wasn?t going to give up that easily. By this time I was about a year into my job, and had been producing several programs for the local middle school and high school which included school news programs and sporting events. I approached the PTAs and sports boosters and asked if they would begin calling the Cablevision switch board every time one of the school programs failed to run or there was a technical problem with the sound. The first week Indianapolis Cablevision received 118 phone calls. At my next meeting with Cablevision I was assured that the programming ?glitches? would be corrected and there would be no need for anymore calls. The next week they received over 135 calls. I knew that I couldn?t wait around for them to get their act together, so my next step was to meet with the mayor, appointed cable franchise board and the city?s attorney. The mayor was a natural in front of the television camera, and was quick to see the importance of communicating directly to his constituents via cable access. A letter was quickly drafted to the president of Indianapolis Cablevision explaining the City of Beech Grove?s interest in exercising our right to look at other cable providers after our present contract expired in 1986. Well, needless to say, that following Mon day there were two engineers in my studio hooking up a modulator and configuring our own access channel.

So what happens when everything you worked for comes true? Things go great, right? Wrong. I soon realized that programming a TV station wasn?t something I had learned in college. People wanted to watch programs in the evenings when they were home. I was already working 60-70 hours a week, and there wasn?t any money to pay someone to play a rotation of tapes in the evenings. I had a character generator that allowed for one page of text to be displayed. I soon began receiving messages from groups and organizations that wanted me to start posting notices of chili suppers, softball team signups and more. I arranged my schedule so that I could spend two evenings a week in the studio playing programs. During the rest of the day, a message was posted that read ?BGTV-Ch. 28.?

Things got better when I purchased four used VHS recorders / players from the local school system. The decks were the old decks that loaded from the top and could be set to ?play? and ?stop? as well as record. (Try finding a VCR or DVD player that can be set to ?play? at a certain time today.) Now it was possible to play several hours of programs each night without someone needing to be present to push buttons. The next lucky break came when I went to a demonstration of the Amiga. For those that may not remember or know, the Amiga was simply a computer that was about 20 years ahead of its time. With the Amiga it became possible to create computer graphics which could be directly streamed to the modulator and out over the air. It also could except several non-synchronous video sources and be used as a switcher - all this for under $500. I had friends who wrote software for me, and before you knew it, I was practically a full blown television station. I had a billboard system that cycled up to 99 messages. I could do animated graphics, and also some really nifty video wipes and edits - all for thousands of dollars less than other industrial video equipment of the day. It was at that time that I realized that somehow, computers were going to play an important role in television production. I just didn?t realize how big a role that would be.

2005 - 2006

Beech Grove TV studio today.

In January of 2005, I was contacted by the Mayor Joe Wright of Beech Grove and asked if I would be interested in the position of Communications Director for the city. Not really knowing the new mayor, I set an appointment to go in and speak to him about the position. As a newly elected official, he informed me that his plan was to completely overhaul the way messages were transmitted to the city and wanted a comprehensive communications process for the city that included internet communications, press relations and, yes, cable access TV. After a two-hour conversation, I agreed to take the job and returned to work with the city of Beech Grove on January 20, 2005.

Having left the position of Cable Access Director in 1987, I never dreamed that I would be back in the industry again. I was excited to be back working in city government, and knew that I could handle the press relations and internet communications without any trouble since that was much of what my work had been over the last two decades. My main concern was the area of television production for a cable access channel. Much had changed in the industry over the last 18 years - the whole digital revolution for one. Sure, I was comfortable with computers, having obtained an associates degree in networking, and having extensive experience in computer graphics and desktop publishing. I had even worked with professional video producers on some industrial video productions. But was the learning curve of new technology going to be too great for this old dog?

Visiting the city?s studio and control room I had helped design, I was surprised to see that much of the post production equipment was only a couple of years old. I was also surprised to see that it was also all analog. The 10? x 20? room was jammed packed with clunky, analog equipment -- everything from the studio and field cameras to the switchers and ?? video editing decks. I must say that a part of me was a little relieved. I figured that at least I was somewhat familiar with how the equipment in the control room worked. All of the manuals were still on the shelves, so at least I could do some production work.

I jumped in with both feet, and began shooting video tape with the 22 lbs. JVC Betacam camera, and editing with the JVC ?? editing decks. I quickly became frustrated. Remember when I said that I had the opportunity to do some industrial video production in previous jobs? Well, that is when I was exposed to digital, non linear video editing. I couldn?t believe how easily video could be moved around and inserted, and how special-effects could be added on the fly. I had ended up purchasing Pinnacle System?s Studio video editing software with an analog video digitizer for home use. That was it in my mind and there was no going back. I couldn?t bring myself to sit and edit video tape the old way. I took the tape home that I had shot and imported it into my laptop and began editing. My laptop was a little sluggish, and it did take several hours for the ? hour program to render and be transferred back to video tape, but for the most part the process went pretty smoothly. I was pleased with the results.

The next step was to enter the tape into the daily playback schedule. Back at the studio, there was a video playback controller with four, ?? JVC VCR?s connected to it. The schedule was broken up into halves: a morning block and an evening block. Connected to the playback controller was a PC that had a titling program that ran a rotation of announcements whenever video tapes weren?t being played. This was a far cry from the old days when I had a few pages of white text that I could play back. The titling program had an infinite number of screen and text font colors as well as different wipe effects. The only thing was that it was clunky, and slow to render. Any time I wanted to add a slide, I would have to take the titler off line. Additionally, there wasn?t a way to easily add graphics or photos to the slides. Working as a network administrator in past positions, I also liked the ability to access the computer remotely - with this setup, that was impossible.

The playback controller wasn?t any better. I quickly realized that I was going to be tied to the control room. The controller had to be programmed through a 10 digit keypad on the front of the controller. This was a laborious process to say the least. I found that it was easy to make mistakes in the programming, and that to assure quality playback, I had to write out the schedule in a spreadsheet in military time first. Also, since the morning schedule and evening schedules were different, I had to be around to switch the tapes out every afternoon. This might not have been so bad if I were simply the Cable Access Director, but as Communications Director I also needed to be out and about the city attending meetings and luncheons as well as shooting video tape. This was simply not going to do.

After several months of evaluation, I finally had a plan to solve some of the major issues that I faced. On top of all of the responsibilities I had with my new position, I was informed that I was to move my office from the cable studio to a new office in the community center two miles away. My problems just became worse. Now I had to arrange my schedule so that I could be back at the cable studio twice a day to program the playback controller and switch out tapes. This also meant that unless I wanted to move some really heavy editing equipment to my new office, I would have to commit to doing all of my editing digitally. I put a proposal together and approached the mayor with my radical plan.

I was shell shocked when the mayor gave his approval to purchase new equipment. The workhorses and backbone for my new plan were three Canon GL-2 mini DV (digital) cameras. These cameras could pull double duty in the day to day operations. Not only could they be used as field cameras, but also with the addition of a few accessories, they could be utilized as studio cameras -- in the new Beech Grove TV (BGTV) studio which was being constructed in the same community center as my new office. Along with the cameras, I purchased a Focus MX-4 DV digital video mixer, a FS-4 Firestore hard drive, and a dual-core 64-bit PC with Avid Pro software to do all of the video editing. Throw in a couple of LCD video screens and an old audio mixer, and voila! I had a new television studio and control room. Amazingly everything fit into a small case with rollers that could fit into the back of my SUV. I couldn?t believe it. I had a portable control room. What used to take 10?s of thousands of dollars and a small moving truck some 10 years ago, now could be done for less than $15,000 and fit into a large suitcase.

Back at the control room things really got exciting. If you will recall, my new office is two miles away from the control room that houses the head-end and playback equipment. I began looking into digital servers that would allow me to schedule and playback programs. Unfortunately anything of quality was price prohibitive. Most of the systems I was really interested in had beginning price points of around $25,000, which was way above my budget. That?s when I came across a company out of Michigan called LEIGHTRONIX that had a digital video server for just over $5000 that looked like it would do everything I wanted it to. After talking to a couple of the engineers with the company, I decided to purchase the NEXUS digital video server. Out of the box, the equipment did exactly what it said it would do. The customer service has been exceptional, and now I can program an entire week of programs, and not have to change out a single tape. For those who are not familiar with digital video servers, I explain the technology as kind of like TIVO on steroids. I have attached a 500 gigabyte hard drive to the NEXUS (it can actually utilize two 500 gigabyte hard drives). The hard drive stores the television programs and the unit can be programmed to play the programs back at any given time. Additionally, the system can have video tape players and DVD machines attached to it for playback or use as source players to digitize programs. The NEXUS also has a fully functional built in electronic sign function that will accept jpeg graphic files.

The really cool thing about the NEXUS is that it can be connected to your wide area network. This allows the device to be programmed remotely from a network-attached computer. I can sit in my office and add slides, edit the playback schedule and transfer video files in real-time. By adding a virtual private network (VPN) connection to my laptop, I am now able to do updates via any internet connection. After purchasing a device called a Sling Box, I am now able to watch Beech Grove?s cable access channel live on my laptop from anywhere. In fact, while I was recently on vacation in Tampa, Florida, I was able to log into my video server, make updates, and watch the channel remotely.

With the upgrade of our network to a high speed connection, I can also broadcast from any city building with a network connection. The city?s future plans to become a wireless community will allow me to broadcast live anywhere in the city. Next year we plan to have internet streaming so that all Beech Grove residents can watch the channel.

So the future looks bright for cable access in Beech Grove.

Tim Showalter is the city of Beech Grove?s Communications Director. For additional information on Beech Grove TV, see www.beechgrove.com/BGTV.

This article appeared in the September/October issue of Public Access of Indianapolis' The Right of Way newsletter.