CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH
MEMORANDUM
DATE: August 12, 2009
TO: D. Mike Good, City Manager
FROM: Ted LaMott, Director of Information Technology
SUBJECT: Discussion of Web Streaming
PURPOSE:
Discussion of web streaming.
BACKGROUND:
The City Manager directed the Information Technology Department to develop an overall plan for City Commission consideration for streaming video on the Internet. This directive coincides with the City Manager’s directive to redesign the City’s website, to make it more “user friendly” and facilitate the managing of City documents, making them more easily available online.
DISCUSSION
Streaming Video
The intent of streaming video on the Internet is to make City Commission, Board meetings, and recorded City events available to the public on a computer system. The video can be seen live or on demand (i.e. Video on Demand).
Video streaming sends the video of an event out onto the Internet for the immediate viewing by the public. Video on demand stores an event’s video to make it available for future (on demand) viewing. Video indexing marks locations on a video to allow viewers to jump to that video segment (ex. Jump to where a specific agenda item begins).
The equipment needed to support webcasting is expensive and has high ongoing maintenance costs (servers, communication lines, etc.). Staff has determined that the most cost-effective solution for webcasting would be to engage an external video service vendor. Staff canvassed numerous Florida Cities and found that the companies Granicus and EarthChannel were the most frequently used vendors. HelloWorld is currently used by one City. BlinkoTV is being used by two Cities and being considered by two others.
Granicus is the best known, most expensive, and has the largest customer base of the webcasting service providers. They offer video streaming, video on demand, and video indexing. Customer references were positive. They use an encoder device to convert the video signal and Microsoft Media Player to view it. Playback can be slow if the user has a slow Internet connection (Microsoft Media Player needs more bandwidth than other players).
EarthChannel is less expensive and has a smaller customer base than Granicus. EarthChannel offers video streaming, video on demand, and video indexing. Customer references were also very positive. An encoder device is used to convert the video signal which is viewed using Silverlight media player (free download). Playback is less subject to latency because the Silverlight media player works better on slow Internet connections than the Microsoft media player.
HelloWorld has been in business for less than a year, is relatively inexpensive, and two customer references (marketing companies) responded with positive comments. HelloWorld offers video streaming, video on demand, but no video indexing. HelloWorld uses the Adobe Flash Player (high quality video card is recommended) for both encoding and viewing. Playback video quality was good. The HelloWorld sales representative was difficult to get to respond to product inquiries.
BlinkoTV has been in business for about a year, is extremely inexpensive, and offered two City customer references. BlinkoTV offers video streaming, no video on demand, and no video indexing. BlinkoTV uses the Adobe Flash Player (high quality video card is recommended) for both encoding and viewing. Playback video quality was average; some videos examples were blurry (probably due to the recording camera quality).
Cost analysis comparing the four vendors reviewed
BlinkoTV is the lowest cost option for video streaming, but does not offer video on demand or video indexing and has a relatively small customer base. HelloWorld was also inexpensive, but does not offer video indexing, has been in business in their current form for less than a year, has a small customer base, and was difficult to get to respond to inquiries. IT believes video indexing is an important feature and EarthChannel meets that need for the lowest price.
The staff also evaluated how to make the City’s website more “user-friendly” and facilitate the managing of City documents, making them more easily available online. Staff received a quote from Civic Plus, the City current website provider, and recommends that $12,000 be budgeted for this project. Staff also reviewed the availability of City documents via the web. Currently the City’s Code of Ordinances is available through the Municode online service. Municode offers an additional service of posting the City’s Ordinances to the web between Code Supplements so that anyone searching the Code will be able to find the most current legislation. Staff recommends that $1,000 per year be budgeted for the posting of these Ordinances on the web. For other City documents staff recommends the City enhance the existing electronic document management system. The vendor offers a module that makes documents available online, the vendor provided a quote for this module of $25,000 with an annual maintenance cost of $7,000.
RECOMMENDATION:
Authorize the City Manager to negotiate in the best interest of the City with the various companies to provide streaming video, website redesign support, Code of Ordinances on the Internet, and Internet access to City documents at a cost not to exceed $59,200, and authorize the City Manager to execute all necessary agreements.
Reviewed:
_______________________________ __________
D. Mike Good, City Manager Date
_____Approved _____Disapproved _____Hold for Discussion