Agenda Packets - 2008/03/03 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No. 1B Meeting Date: March 3, 2008 Type of Business: WK WK: Work Session; PH: Public Hearing; CA: Consent Agenda; CB: Council Business City Administrator Review: ____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Vanessa Van Alstine, Cable Television Coordinator Item Title/Subject: Cable TV Equipment – Non-Linear Editing System Date of Report: February 28, 2008 Computer Upgraded as Anticipated The need for a non-linear editing system was brought to the Council at the November 5, 2007 Work Session. At that time staff requested the $8500 in the Capital Equipment fund (Account #210 – 4350 – 7030) slated for this purchase be moved into the 2008 budget in anticipation of major system upgrades from the computer manufacturer. On January 8, 2008, Apple released the new Mac Pro computer based on the next generation of Intel processors. The revised system has substantial performance improvements over the previous version, including twice the processing cores and power, faster system bus, Bluetooth as a standard feature, faster RAM speeds, and high performance video card options. Staff monitored industry reviews and user forums to ensure that the new system was stable. The Apple operating system, OS X 10.5 was updated to version 10.5.2 in part to provide drivers for the new high-end video cards, which did not begin shipping until mid- February. After an initial delay while vendors sourced product to meet the new specifications, third-party RAM memory has become available for the updated computer system. At this point, systems with similar configurations to the proposed are shipping, have been reviewed, and have been positively received. Update on Staff Costs/Inefficiencies The costs associated with travelling to CTV to use their equipment continue to increase. The IRS mileage reimbursement rate has increased from $0.485/mile in 2007 to $0.505/mile in 2008. The estimated cost of staff time, included benefits, has risen from $26.09/hour to $27.28/hour. The previous report, dated November 1, 2007, outlined a scenario with maximal use of CTV edit equipment resulting in 1560 miles of travel, 104 hours of staff overhead associated with travelling to CTV, and another 180 hours in lost productivity due to computer-intensive tasks such as capturing tape and rendering video. The estimated overhead in using CTV equipment was approximately $8166/year with 2007