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Raleigh Cable Access Goes To Eleven

On my lunch hour Friday, I stopped by the television studios of the Raleigh Television Network, the city’s cable TV community access channels. A very helpful Mr. Ted Savage welcomed me and gave me a tour of the facilities.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the studio is now all-digital, with equipment free to for anyone’s use providing they have taken the appropriate course for using it. These courses were scheduled for September, but as I understand it classes will be opening sooner. A meeting anouncing the upcoming courses will be held on July 16th in the Raleigh City Council chambers.

I drooled over the three-CCD Mini-DV field cameras now available for use. They provide a quantum-leap in quality for a fraction of weight that the clunky SVHS cameras provided. The two Final Cut Pro editing stations (with widescreen flatpanel monitors) were sitting idle. The all-digital studio (with chroma-key), was also waiting for activity.

I never put together a show the last time I was a registered producer as I was busy with one thing or another. This time, however, I fully intend to put this digital system through its paces. I don’t even know what shows or programming I want to produce, but it’ll be something interesting. My three years of blogging has been good training for coming up with ideas.

(And if you’ve got something you’d like to see on community access TV, drop me a comment below.)

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  1. Let me know when classes are going on – that might be fun to do.

  2. Not sure exactly when the courses will be held, but here’s a sampling of fees:

    Beginning Field Production (SVHS cameras) $30
    Advanced Field Production (DV cameras) $40
    Final Cut Pro workshop $80

    There are others.

    The meeting is on Saturday, July 16th from 10 to 11 AM in the City Council Chambers. If you’re going, please call 831-6278.

  3. Mark,

    Those prices for the classes are so cheap … the same classes in L.A. would run you several hundred dollars.

    You can learn loads about production from the following FREE magazines:

    Digital Video magazine
    http://www.dv.com

    Film&Video magazine
    http://www.filmandvideomagazine.com

    Government Video magazine
    governmentvideo.com

    Digital TV magazine
    http://www.digitaltelevision.com

    TVB – Television Broadcast magazine
    http://www.televisionbroadcast.com

    There’s another one I have at work that I’ll post info on later.

    Just go to the web site and fill out the subscription page and you’ll get the magazines FREE!!!

    Matt

  5. The only show I know about on community access is done by a woman I work with- I haven’t watched it, but I’ve heard it centers on conservative Christian values and far-right conservative political issues. Maybe you should do a rebuttal show?

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