Summary of Jan. 21, 2003 DVUG Meeting #1
Anne Rossheim & Elizabeth Clark Hessel helped prepare
this summary
Meeting held at Montgomery Community Television (MCT) Classroom, Rockville, MD
1. Merrill Hessel opened the meeting, introduced himself, and stated the purpose
of the group. The DVUG is organized to enable users to help each other. He
introduced Bill Shade, the Executive Director of MCT.
2. Bill Shade stated his support for the group and its ability to improve
MCT programming. He said that MCT is moving toward digital television production
and this group will help in that process. He fielded questions about the
transition to digital at MCT. The equipment is expensive; their budget is
limited; and 250 volunteers need to be trained on new digital equipment. The
station spent $180,000 on new DV file servers and is converting from analog to
digital. In the next 1-2 years, MCT will start mastering DVD.
3. He stated, that within 6 months there will be two Non-Linear edit booths,
one with a Mac using Final Cut Pro (FCP) and the other with a PC using Adobe
Premiere. The MCT staff will be trained and a manual for the systems will be
available.
4. Merrill introduced a digital video he produced to illustrate various
aspect of digital video production. This video along with and explanation of
each clip is now available on the DVUG website at http://www.dvug.org/dvug/dvug_intro.html
We think you will find this very informative.
Merrill answered questions from members and offered some book
recommendations. Lighting for Digital Video & Television by John
Jackman, Color Correction for Digital Video, by Steve Hullfish &
Jaime Fowler, Audio Post Production for Digital Video, by Jay Rose
5. Stan Doore, Vice President of the MCT Board of Directors, spoke to the
group about the mandate by the FCC to require Broadcast stations to convert to
Digital TV by 2006. He also talked about setting up a home media center. He said
digital TV could be divided into two parts, standard TV and high definition. He
also talked about the problem with DVD authoring and the standards that are
involved. One must be careful when purchasing a DVD burner to make sure it
will produce DVD's that will be compatible with future market standards.
6. Dennis Courtney, President of the Capital Area PC Users’ Group (CPCUG)
a 2000 member group, spoke to our group. He stated that the purpose of a user
group is to get users helping users. He emphasized that when if the group gets
of critical size it should consider such needs as insurance, financing,
bookkeeping, possible donations, tax preparation, etc. There is no hurry to make
a decision at this point. Possibilities are forming a 501 C3, affiliating with
his group, remaining a small entity. He said that we could become a sub-group of
the CPCUG with the minimal requirement that one member of the DVUG join his
group ($42/year) and at each DVUG a few minute pitch to encourage the members to
join the CPCUG. The advantages are the use of CPCUG training rooms, possibility
of the CPCUG setting up a Non-Linear editing suite at their Rockville location,
free streaming media services for members, use of their list servers, and the
umbrella of their organization with 20 years of infra structure, user group
business processes, insurance, etc. Since about 40% of the DVUG members are MAC
users there was a hesitancy to commit to such an arrangement. Our DVUG group
decided to take the matter under advisement for now.
7.Mark Cohen, Producer of The Coffee House, an hour show that is shown on 13
cable access stations throughout the MD, DC and Virginia Areas and a Macintosh
user, spoke to the group on editing in Final Cut Pro. He drew a diagram, and explained the basics of editing in FCP. It was stated from the audience that the
Adobe Premiere, a similar Non-Linear Editing system for the PC & MAC was
almost identical in structure and that if you learned FCP then you could
transfer you knowledge directly to using Premiere or visa versa.
Mark then made a very generous offer. He offered to any MCT producer who
wants to produce a segment for The Coffee House, free FCP training and access to
his machine to edit this segment.
8. One major suggestion was that the DVUG have a list server setup as soon
as possible. Tom Hoopengardner volunteered to do this. He completed this action.
A list serve will send e-mails which are typically questions, information
items, etc. to those who have joined. It is a means of communicating to members
of the DVUG who have any type of question and we hope someone in the group who
has the appropriate knowledge will answer it.
Once you have joined and if you have a Question, Comment or Information send
an e-mail to:
This e-mail will reach all DVUG members who subscribed to the list serv.
9. Merrill concluded the meeting. There was extensive after meeting
discussions by the meeting attendees.
The next meeting DVUG will be February 18, 2003 at MCT at 7:30 pm. A map and
many more details and articles will be on the DVUG website at www.dvug.org