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City of Seattle
NOTE: This news release has been retained for historical use ONLY! While the text was accurate at the date of the release, the contact information may be out of date.
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NEWS ADVISORY
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| SUBJECT: TVSea can now be seen on the Internet, around the clock
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
1/9/2001 12:00:00 AM |
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Rona Zevin - (206)684-8264
Katherine Schubert-Knapp (206) 684-0909
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Seattle municipal access TV now available on the Internet,
24 hours a day, seven days a week
SEATTLE — Mayor Paul Schell announced today the municipal cable access channel — TVSea — is now being webcast around the clock on the Internet. The same programming shown on Seattle’s municipal channel is simultaneously streamed on-line, making city government access channel programming available, via the Internet, to anyone in the world with access to a computer and the World Wide Web. The live stream can be accessed via the following link:
http://www.cityofseattle.net/tvsea/live.ram
"The more our citizens are informed about and engaged in the workings of city government, the better for all of us," Schell said. "The Internet offers many exciting ways to make that easier to do. This is just one more example of how we’re working to bring municipal government closer to the people it serves."
The city of Seattle has been streaming selected videos since 1998 and was among the first U.S. cities to make videos available on the Internet.
Councilmember Jim Compton, whose Public Safety and Technology Committee meetings were the first to be streamed live while in session, had been seeking the continuous webcast of TVSea programming. "This is a significant development," Compton said. "TVSea was created to inform citizens about their government and to offer them a timely opportunity to be involved in government decisions. Thanks to the Internet, we can make this information available at the click of a mouse button."
Seattle’s current live stream uses a new process called Variable Bitrate Encoding, enabling the city to stream at much faster rate, closer to video quality. "This rate is almost 10 times faster than when we first began streaming video," said Rona Zevin, director of Interactive Media for the city of Seattle. "It also enables you to receive the fastest stream your modem can process, even if you are using a cable modem."
In addition to the live stream of the channel, Seattle makes many City Council and committee meetings, as well as other videos produced at TVSea, available as streaming "video on demand" on its website at:
http://www2.ci.seattle.wa.us/media/
Future plans call for upgrading the way the city’s "videos on demand" are produced by switching to a "dual-pass" encoding method. Within the next few months, it will be possible to view archived videos at higher speeds and greatly improved video quality.
Later this year the city plans to add a second live feature to its streaming capabilities. In addition to webcasting the channel live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Seattle will webcast council meetings live regardless of whether they are carried live on the municipal access channel.
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TVSea Live
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