Commissioner Meetings Use New Live-Steam & Recorded Video System

Media Release from Cook County - May 9, 2018 

Cook County has a new live-stream and video system in the Board of Commissioners

Room at the Courthouse to broadcast and record its meetings. The system, that includes a camera mounted on the ceiling, was used for the first time at the May 8 Board of Commissioners Meeting. This camera system is dual purpose – it has the ability to live-stream meetings on-line and is also programmable to record meetings for a specific time.  At the May 8 Meeting, the live-stream function hosted through the County’s website was turned on 17 minutes prior to 8:30 am, when Board Meetings begin to test the system. YouTube was open so the stream was being captured, but the actual video event was not scheduled to begin recording until 8:30

am.

If someone was following the livestream event, the first 17 minutes prior to the start of the Board

Meeting would have been viewable. Both the live-stream event and the recording ended when the

meeting was adjourned, and camera was shut off. It takes approximately five to 10 minutes after the event ends to process the live-stream into an archived recorded video, and only includes the video taken between the scheduled start and end times. The 17 minutes prior to the start of the Board Meeting and the scheduled recording start time, is not retrievable.

“It would be similar to having your smart phone in the camera mode and watching whatever is going on in front of the camera; however, the recording doesn’t begin until you actually press the record button,” said Jeff Cadwell, County Administrator. “Which explains the difference between footage viewed through the live-stream event and the archived recording available afterward. The County does not edit any video footage of public meetings. We are using and getting used to a new process that was previously provided by a contractor and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Contact: Jeff Cadwell, County Administrator, 218-387-3687 or [email protected]