National Association of Legislative Information Technology Webcasting Policies and Pitfalls NCSL 2004 Annual Meeting July 22, 2003 STATE: _TEXAS_

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1 Question National Association of Legislative Information Technology Webcasting Policies and Pitfalls NCSL 2004 Annual Meeting July 22, 2003 STATE: _TEXAS_ Texas House of Representatives Questions, please contact: Monica Vigil-McDonald Communications Director-Texas House of Representatives Texas Senate Questions, please us: What types of webcasting do you support (e.g., audio only, audio and video)? What meetings do you webcast (e.g., committees, chamber proceedings, both)? Audio Video Website Legislative Session Committees Press Conferences Audio Video Website/Wecast *Please see attached diagrams Legislative Session Committees Press Conferences How long have you been doing webcasting? Webcasting started in Started May 22, 1999 with a Finance Committee Meeting. What are your staffing requirements (e.g., to perform the webcast, to annotate the webcast, to archive the webcast, to support on-demand requests)? Staffing varies with the number of committees we are broadcasting at the time. If there are only one or two meetings, we will put two cameras in each committee meeting room. One employee will be assigned to each committee meeting to start broadcasting on television and encoding on the web page. That person will then "switch cameras" live, on air. For example: when the member talks you only see them talking, when the witness talks, you only see them on the television screen. However, if we have more than two committees meeting at the same time on a given day, we will put one camera in each committee room and set the shot on a wide picture of the entire meeting. During the interim, we have five employees in our department, who are trained to start broadcasting on television and encoding on the web page. During Interim: Audio: We have two audio technicians to audio tape the committee meetings both, in the Capitol complex and on the road, which could be anywhere in Texas. These technicians are cross-trained with video equipment. All committee audio and video are connected to one central location (Senate Media) to tape them from one place. Video: We have one video technician that controls video camera work in the Senate Chamber. Also we have stationed video cameras in press conference rooms and committee rooms. The technician is also set with a linear and non-linear video editing system for editing and dubbing.

2 Question Texas House of Representatives Texas Senate Typically, the only time we have that many meetings is during regular or special session, not during interim. Website/Wecast: Two technicians handle the website design/updates and webcast. One employee is a Spanish translator for our Spanish pages. During Session: Audio: We have four people during session. They audio tape committee hearings, session, press conferences, and during session they produce a daily radio program that covers Senate News. Do you have any content disclaimers for your webcast? If so, can you provide the language of your disclaimer? Have you experienced bandwidth problems with increased demand for your webcast? If so, how have you addressed this problem? The following is listed on our video/audio broadcast web page: "This video/audio programming is produced by the Texas House of Representatives. Chapter 306, Government Code, prohibits the use of video/audio materials produced by the House of Representatives in any political advertising. Violators may be subject to a civil penalty up to $5,000 for each violation. Video: Two people during Session to cover the heavy load. Website/Webcast: Same as interim. This audio programming is produced by the Texas Senate. Chapter 306, Government Code, prohibits the use of audio or visual materials produced by the Texas Legislature in any political advertising. Violators may be subject to a civil penalty up to $5,000 for each violation. In preparation for heavy internet traffic activity during a regular session, the Texas Legislative Council (TLC) implements a separate 100MB link dedicated for the Senate and House external Realvideo Servers. This link is in place to prevent external Realvideo broadcasts from overloading the bandwidth and affecting the performance of other critical servers accessed by the public. Once the legislative session is complete and the internet traffic has diminished, these servers are returned to the regular internet network. Based on the current configurations for the Senate and House, we have seen this 100MB link get as high at 65MB. Broadcasting at higher bit-rates and increasing the number of user licenses would increase consumption of this 100MB link. Do you archive any of your webcast? if so, Yes Yes Do you have an archive policy and t at this time. can you provide a copy? Archiving is done by encoding straight to the local computer and then sent to the server. We had problems sending archives to the server while encoding at the same time.

3 Question Texas House of Representatives Texas Senate Retention Schedule-We retain the previous session and the current one (i.e. the 77th Legislature and the 78th Legislature currently) In January, the TLC will archive the 77th on back-up tape. Then we will start building the 79th Legislature Archives. What is the retention schedule (e.g., how long is it available on line)? Keeping historical documentation is part of Senate Media's charge. However in the future there may become a time when a retention schedule is created. Currently everything that is archived is available on the Senate website. What media options do you support (e.g., RealOne Player, MS Windows Media Player, VHS tape, cassette, CD, DVD)? Media Options-Currently we only encode Real Media files with Real Networks Helix Producer encoding software. There are no plans at this time to change. Real Media. We use Real Media because it is available for all three major platforms (Windows, Macintosh and Linux). Quicktime (primarily free) is too new to the web streaming field and not tested like the other two. What are the hardware requirements (e.g., disk space required and server to support)? If the webcast is no longer on line, do you support requests for access to a meeting that is no longer on line? If so, what are your procedures for this? Every location's hardware requirements will be different. It all depends on how many concurrent users will be accessing broadcasts and what quality of video they wish to broadcast at. The higher the video quality the higher the server load. TLC has a total of (2) servers for the House and (2) servers in the Senate to support internal and external broadcasts. The servers are Processor - Dual Xeon 733Mhz processors RAM - 2GB Disk space - 150GB A DVD or Video can be purchased. Do you duplicate and provide copies of webcast meetings? If so, on what format and what are the polices for requesting? Do you charge for this service? What policy do you have for converting archived files if software or hardware changes require conversion? Response to Duplication Requests-Rarely do we dub the archives, but we can dub either the audio only or video of the file itself. Audio tape copies and/or DVD's respectfully can be made of committee meetings and floor sessions. They are available to the public and members through an Open Records Request. ne at this time. Audio tapes are available via Staff Services, who also transcribe the meetings when requested. Once a Real Media format, always a Real Media format. It is close to impossible to convert Real format to other formats. But server software (like Helix) that serves these files to the public can support multiple formats on the server. The client must have the Real Player, Windows Media Player or Quicktime Player. So, if we switch to an other platform, the server should handle the old files fine.

4 Question Texas House of Representatives Texas Senate Do you annotate archived webcast to facilitate finding that portion of a webcast where the discussion on a specific bill occurred? If so, how is this done, and what level of staffing is required (e.g., number, amount of time)? After we livestream a committee meeting, we upload (via FTP) the encoded file to our Real Media Server. Then, instead of directly adding (i.e., hardcoding) a link to the file from our House website, we put attributes of the webcast into a MySQL database. The attributes include the webcast's file name, its date and the start/end times, the committee it's associated with, and any other pertinent information. This allows us to search and display any of our committee Webcasts in various ways. Using dynamic programming code (specifically PHP), our website can automatically build a list of Webcasts ("behind the scenes") using the latest data in less then a second. This method allows anyone using our website to easily access the most updated list of committee webcasts, for example, by date or by committee. This speed of delivery is possible since multiple personnel from our office can update the webcast database using a web-based interface (i.e., control panel) without any prior knowledge of the website development. How have you addressed webcast files versus your official records (e.g., committee minutes, journal)? Has your webcast file ever been used to challenge the official record or been used to argue intent of specific legislation? Do you prevent the downloading/capturing of webcast/streamed files? If so, how is this done? Has an excerpt of a webcast ever appeared in a campaign ad? Do you have a plan for addressing this if it does occur? According to Texas House of Representatives rules, none of our produced material is available for campaign purposes. The audiotape remains as the official record. There is no save or download feature. According to Texas House of Representatives rules, none of our produced material is available for campaign purposes. We are still required by law to audiotape committee meetings and Session on audio cassette tapes. Webcasts are gaining popularity since they are very convenient and free to the public if they have Internet access. However, the audiotape remains as the official record. Webcasts are only available on the web without a save feature.

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