Perhaps you have had one of those days when things just don’t go they way they should. I think we all have and sometimes, it seems nothings seems to go right. Well we had one of those moments in fire drill fashion just before the council meeting on February 19th. Just before we’re about to broadcast the meeting we go to turn on the DVD recorder and it’s dead. No lights, no power, nothing. The meeting is about to start and the means for recording isn’t available.
No problem, in the past as we had two VCR’s that did the job. If one went down the other would be used. Our back up now is the VCR and having not used it for several years it wasn’t automatic to switch it over. Fast thinking was in play however to save the day. We had another VCR in the building set up so it could record the broadcast as it was accomplished live. The fast thinking was great but not fast enough to catch the start of the meeting and we didn’t capture the first 3 minutes or so.
In retrospect the equipment we have been using is coming to the point where reliability is an issue. The DVD recorders weren’t that old but had seen a number of year’s worth of service. Our backup is original equipment now about 12 years old. An investment in not one both two DVD recorders seems to be in order. And unfortunately with the VCR recording of the meeting the quality of the recording isn’t what we have had in the recent past.
Given most of the equipment is 12 years old and was never of TV studio quality it probably is time we look at some upgrades. I guess it takes a “now what do we do” moment to get back on track. Thanks to Greg Pruszinske for saving the meeting recording.
