Decatur Offers Live Online Streaming of City Commission Meetings

From Asst. City Manager Linda Harris…

The City of Decatur announces the launch of streaming video for the Decatur City Commission meetings beginning Monday, August 6, 2012.  The option has been in the Pilot Testing Phase and goes live Monday night.

“This feature is part of our ongoing commitment to offering a variety of ways to access our City Commission meetings and information,” said Mayor Bill Floyd.  “We hope that those who have an interest will take advantage of this new service.”

To access the streaming video option, visit www.decaturga.com and click on City Government, City Commission, Streaming Video.  Once the service moves out of the Pilot Testing Phase at the end of August, there will be a button from the front page of the website that will take viewers directly to the streaming video page.

The City Commission meetings continue to be broadcast live on Comcast Channel 25 in addition to this new service.  We encourage your feedback and suggestions during this testing phase so that we can make any needed adjustments.

11 thoughts on “Decatur Offers Live Online Streaming of City Commission Meetings”


  2. Can someone explain in non-techie language what “live streaming video” means? What is the difference between streaming video vs. a live webcast vs. a web meeting vs. Skyping vs. other ways of watching something in real time via a computer screen? Is it unidirectional? Multidirectional with viewers able to join in and comment or ask questions? Recorded and saved for later for those not able to watch in real time?

    1. I “second” that request. Also someone made a very technical reply to the post about Decatur’s Wi-Fi system, that makes no sense to me.

      1. You mean the comment that went “I just don’t see much of a future with Wi-Fi because LTE has a bigger RF footprint and a lower cost to deploy due to its remote core and flat architecture”? …..I read that and was tempted to reply with an immature “Yeah, I was just thinking that”! Besides the fact that I don’t know what LTE and RF stand for, “remote core” and “flat architecture” seem like oxymorons to me.

        1. AR and AHID: Google is your friend and so is Wikipedia. I found the info below in less than 2 minutes.

          “LTE (an initialism of Long Term Evolution), marketed as 4G LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_%28telecommunication%29

          “The RF plan of a cellular communication system has two objectives: coverage and capacity. Coverage relates to the geographical footprint within the system that has sufficient RF signal strength to provide for a call/data session. Capacity relates to the capability of the system to sustain a given number of subscribers.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_Planning — All us regular people need to know is that “RF footprint” means radio frequency footprint which means how the service is balancing geographic coverage against capacity (handling more calls from more subscribers at the same time).

          RE. “remote core” and “flat architecture” — probably terms of art in the rarefied circles of mobile telecom engineers. The rest of us don’t need to know or care what either means.

          1. Thanks. He could have said Wi-Fi has a limited future because 4G systems are better. Anyway, back on topic, in the interest of open government, I like the idea of live and on demand streaming of Commission meetings.

    2. Actually, it looks like there are a bunch of commission mtgs already archieved and available on the city’s website here. They even have the segments labelled by agenda topic. http://www.decaturga.com/index.aspx?page=654

      Pretty cool.

  4. “Live streaming video” means it is coming (via the Web or TV system) into your receiver (your PC or your satellite or cable receiver) in real time. If it’s being broadcast via the Web, that’s a “live webcast.” You may be able to save it to watch later, I don’t know if that depends on your equipment/settings or on how the broadcast is set up, or both. If it’s coming through the TV system — cable or satellite — if you have a recorder, e.g., a TiVo device, you can save it for later.

    Many webcasts are available “on demand” instead of live. They have been pre-recorded and are just out there to be accessed at your convenience. On demand movies and TV shows via the TV systems, ditto.

    Web meetings: can be a private meeting for invited participants only; or a public meeting that anybody can join or at least monitor; or a public meeting that anyone can attend if they register. If the session is public, the hosts may offer attendees the chance to ask questions. What is required in the way of registering/identifying yourself varies, depending on who’s throwing the party and their objectives. These kinds of meetings also may be recorded and saved, it depends.

    Skype is a commercial platform that offers tiered services, i.e., certain ones are free and others you have to pay for. (Kind of like basic participation in LinkedIn is free, but to do do certain things you have to subscribe.)

  6. Uhh, live streaming isn’t complicated enough to require a pilot program or anything that complicated, why can’t the city just use http://www.ustream.tv/ ?

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