People often refer to new favorite devices using the latest technology as toys, but for Akaku: Maui Community Television, a new, $60,000 video-over-cellular technology is a serious tool, a "game-changer," said President and CEO Jay April.
In community television, "particularly on the neighbor islands, we don’t have the kind of budget" that allows for the satellite trucks and technical staff needed to offer live cablecasts of important events, April said.
However, new backpack-size technology from New Jersey-based LiveU eliminates the need for such pay-per-event expense and allows Akaku personnel to "send a broadcast signal live … from any place there’s a decent cellphone signal," to either Akaku studios, "to news media on Oahu" or even out of state, "to end-units that have receiving capability," he said.
He likened the way it works to the "beam me up, Scotty" technology we learned from "Star Trek," except that instead of people, it’s video being disassembled, transmitted and reassembled at the destination point.
Oahu’s ‘Olelo Community Media saw its first LiveU unit pay dividends during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Honolulu in November 2011.
Security measures prevented broadcast satellite trucks from accessing the Hawai‘i Convention Center or any of the venues where President Barack Obama or other world leaders were present, said Roy Amemiya Jr., president and CEO.
"During APEC our guys were walking around with backpacks … (providing) so many hours of live programming, when all the broadcast stations were telling people where the traffic was going to be backed up," he said.
‘Olelo’s first LiveU unit was a demonstration model "that worked so well, we ended up buying it," Amemiya said.
A second unit has since been purchased, and both have been used simultaneously on different occasions, including this week at the state Legislature, with one unit each in the House and Senate sending cellular-delivered video to studios in Mapunapuna with a signal superior to its older-technology fiber connection.
‘Olelo will use LiveU beginning at 6 p.m. this evening for a live Channel 53 cablecast and YouTube live stream of the 2013 Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame’s "Lei of Stars" concert from the Monarch Room of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
For Akaku the game-changing device is allowing the stations to go to "places in Maui Nui that we weren’t able to broadcast live from previously," said April.
LiveU has enabled the live cablecast of the State of the County address, not from the already-wired County Council chambers, but from a local high school; live coverage of a County Council meeting on Lanai; and from popular community events.
"We see this as a way to bring people together," April said.
Another new tool, called "Live Smart," makes a smartphone or tablet into a live-streaming-capable device. April used it at a conference in Denver to interview a broadband expert and sent the interview to the studios "so everybody on Maui could see it," he said. The app was installed on state Rep. Angus McKelvey’s iPad, which he used to make an announcement to constituents via Akaku.
The LiveU technology is not proprietary, said ‘Olelo Director of Community Services Michael Paz, and at the recent National Association of Broadcasters annual convention, he saw competing technology, both higher-end and lower-end. It appeared to be catching on among broadcast and cable networks and stations, he said.
April is excited by the possibilities the technology brings to the small community TV operation.
"I think it gives community television a new rejuvenating point," he said. "Typical broadcast outlets … go live only at certain times; they’re locked into a commercial schedule," he said, citing the almost daily live shots showing reporters standing in a spot where something happened hours earlier.
"One of the things we’re doing is actually intentionally evolving one of our channels — and it may be 55, because it rhymes with ‘live’ — into less of a product and more of a process," April said. The idea is to make it a channel where viewers can see something that is happening right now or that just happened. Combined with correspondents equipped with Live Smart on their cellphones, Akaku could have volunteer reporters all over Maui, April said.
He is encouraging sister community TV operations Ho‘ike Kauai and Na Leo ‘o Hawai‘i, on the Big Island, to purchase similar units so all four operations can explore joint possibilities.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
