[opendtv] Re: Rochester Responders Tuning in Datacasts

They are not the first.. the article is misleading...

Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
> http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/news/2006.03.08-04-n-rochester.shtm
> l
> 
> Rochester Responders Tuning in Datacasts
> Pubcaster WXXI, Triveni build emergency info system
> 
> by Sanjay Talwani
> 
> ROCHESTER, N.Y.: One night about two years ago, Lt. Dan Bender
> of the Rochester (N.Y.) Fire Department, was watching HBO
> on-demand, and got an idea.
> 
> What if the city and county's emergency and public health and
> safety squads had a similar kind of on-demand menu of training
> programs, weather updates, daily schedules and, when needed,
> information on an emergency in progress? And what if 100
> offices and agencies in Rochester and Monroe County, N.Y.,
> could access all this continually updated content using that
> most familiar of man's tools, the remote control?
> 
> Since his on-demand epiphany, Bender has been awarded a hefty
> federal grant, acquired a Triveni Digital SkyScraper
> datacasting system, and a couple of extra megabits-per-second
> on the public airwaves of WXXI-DT, the local PBS DTV station.
> He's also managed to sell the program, the Emergency Training
> and Information Network (ETIN), to his local emergency response
> crews-including about 39 fire departments in the largely rural
> county. And the system is so easy to use, he said, that it's
> "fireman-proof."
> 
> Bender's project at WXXI is another example of public
> television stations that are using new digital broadcast
> technologies for public safety and emergency response, even as
> Congress considers legislation to revise the data of analog
> shut-off reassign frequencies to public safety needs.
> 
> Broadcasters say the Rochester project shows the broadcast
> infrastructure itself can be a backbone of widely varied,
> advanced, rich-media public services of the future.
> 
> At presstime, the WXXI project was on the verge of launching,
> linking police and fire departments, hospitals, and more with
> a continuous daily stream of safety and training content, plus
> special emergency functions, controlled by remotes and viewed
> on 32-inch LCD screens.
> 
> "What it came down to is, 'how do we consolidate all this
> content and deliver it over a single pipe, so to speak, to a
> dedicated location like a firehouse, like a police station,
> like a hospital, without creating too much overhead at the
> recipient site?'" said Ralph Bachofen, director of product
> management for Triveni Digital in Princeton Junction, N.J.
> 
> Initially, Bender brought his idea to the local cable operator,
> Time Warner Cable, who showed little interest, he said. But
> then he met with folks at WXXI, and found a more receptive
> audience. He then found a Department of Homeland Security
> grant-a "Special Projects Grant" in a part of DHS called the
> Metropolitan Medical Response Program-whose aims closely
> matched what Bender wanted to do. Of the 170 cities that were
> eligible to apply for the grant, 50 applied and Rochester was
> awarded the top grant, $641,480, in late 2004.
> 
> The project uses the SkyScraper DataFab component to ingest
> content from various sources as program operators for ETIN's
> six different channels (police, fire, hospital, etc.) drag
> and drop files into appropriate folders. The SkyScraper
> DataHub component allocates appropriate bandwidth for the
> content and integrates it into the DTV data stream.
> 
> Around the region, a DataReceiver card in a single computer
> at each location captures the data and can store it for use
> in that location's local intranet and for display on one of
> the LCD screens.
> 
> It may be the bleeding edge of public safety datacasting
> technology, but Bender kept in mind that his firefighters
> weren't all that crazy about computers and sometimes handle
> their equipment a little roughly. But everyone can manage a
> remote control, and the TV is on nonstop in many firehouses.
> 
> Bachofen agreed. "You don't have to do anything on the client
> side, which is really important because some of the folks on
> the client side might not be technical people," he said. "It
> has to be simple on the client side."
> 
> THREE MODES
> 
> It doesn't get much simpler than the most basic of the three
> modes in Rochester's ETIN. The "automatic" mode essentially
> sends non-critical information-training videos, safety
> reminders, and timely updates such as weather reports and
> staffing notes to the client for display in a continuous loop.
> The idea is that firefighters will see some of the short clips
> -on effective CPR, or a particular rescue technique-enough
> times that they will absorb the knowledge. This mode also
> includes an information crawl at the bottom of the screen. As
> Bender puts it, it's pretty much like watching television,
> and it could include some fun features, like trivia and
> quizzes, to help keep viewers interested.
> 
> The second mode is an on-demand world, where a local station
> can pull down timely information-instructions on how to deal
> with a particular event, for example, or a needed training
> course. Since firefighters tend to be leaving the station
> frequently without notice, the on-demand model works well for
> them.
> 
> The third, emergency mode, would override the other modes on
> all receivers so everyone is literally on the same page. And
> responders heading to the scene of the emergency would have
> the appropriate maps or other crucial data.
> 
> Bender beat the pavement to win local support. "One of the
> big sells was to tie in all the agencies together, have this
> interoperability," he said. "We had to go out and we took the
> show on the road. We went to chiefs, their monthly meetings,
> and we showed them what we had: 'We're going to purchase this
> for you, we're going to install it for you, it's basically a
> plug-and-play.'"
> 
> For WXXI's initial ETIN launch, Bender will begin with about
> 20 sites (mostly Rochester Fire Department locations), iron
> out bugs, and expand to the other 80 or so sites across a
> 75-mile radius. Other agencies, including the state police
> and neighboring Livingston County, have expressed interest in
> joining up as well.
> 
> The cost, said Bachofen, runs roughly $2,000 to $3,000 per
> receiver, depending on features, and the SkyScraper backbone
> runs around $12,000 to $15,000.
> 
> Looking ahead, Bender is interested in using WiMax technology
> for backchannel communication. In addition to being able to
> have two-way communications, Bender wonders, wouldn't it be
> great to be able to shoot a scene on video and stream it
> right back to the hub for retransmission to other emergency
> responders?
> 
> The project is far from the first program to use public TV's
> resources for public safety needs.
> 
> WNET in New York has demonstrated, along with the Fire
> Department of New York, a system of "Smart Nets," including
> two-way WiMax mobile communications, over the station's
> Educational Broadband Service (EBS) frequencies around 2.5
> GHz, formerly known as the Instructional Television Fixed
> Service Band. Unlike DTV datacasting, which generally blasts
> out 8-VSB signals one-way, broadcasters are allowed to
> modulate their EBS signal in different ways, such as WiMax's
> mobile two-way 802.16e flavor.
> 
> The WNET focus is on front-line responders like police and
> fire units. "They, for their communications needs, require,
> number one, mobility and, number two, two-way communications,"
> said Stephen Carroll-Cahnmann, director of Digital Convergence
> for WNET.
> 
> He said the demonstration and research project, now in its
> "end game" has been enormously successful in showing the
> viability of WiMax technology over EBS to serve public safety
> needs.
> 
> "Our argument has been, there's these frequencies in the hands
> of public stations who are dying to sit down with public
> safety," he said. "There's some new technology, and public
> stations are at the forefront of pushing through this model."
> 
> Los Angeles public station KLCS is datacasting to 25 high
> schools and eight middle schools, reaching about 40 percent of
> the of the high schools in the city. These schools have access
> to high-bit-rate streaming channels (1 Mbps each) over the air
> with near-video-on-demand on  every computer in each school,
> according to Alan Popkin, director of TV engineering and
> technical operations at KCLS.
> 
> And datacasts could increase rapidly in the future. Triveni
> Digital says SkyScraper technology is already deployed in
> public stations reaching half of all viewers in the country.
>  
>  
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