KCPT Datacasting Pilot Project

KCPT Datacast Pilot Project ... Fall, 2002 - Spring, 2003

KCPT is currently running an internal pilot project that will test the practical application of its existing equipment and serve to build relationships with schools and colleges it serves, while discovering what is involved in datacasting content, from start to finish.

KCPT had acquired the equipment needed to begin datacasting -- digital television transmitter (digital signal), multiplexor, PSIP solution, datacasting solution (KCPT selected Triveni's Skyscraper), data fab and data Hub, as well as a cadre of multimedia computers equipped with data receiver cards that can be loaned to pilot project participants -- from a planning grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2001.

The project goals are

to successfully prepare content (a variety of file formats) for datacast;
to datacast to two K-12 school districts and two colleges in a project controlled by KCPT; and
to evaluate amounts and kinds of technical and instructional support required by schools to successfully receive and use the content.

For the project, KCPT repurposed existing local video and web site content Water and Fire, the Story of the Ozarks (full one-hour video program and web site), Uniquely Kansas City (full five-hour video series and interactive web site), and KC REACHE Installer CD (self-running installer program, designed to provide information and plug-in applications to distance education students). The video was encoded at 750 kbps MPEG-4 and the web sites, which contain QuickTime Virtual Realities, Flash and Real Video clips, were "flattened" for local desktop access and LAN distribution.

KCPT has prepared the content for datacasting and has produced an interface with which users will access that content. Signal strength has been tested at the sites -- a Metropolitan Community College located in an urban area two blocks from the station (about 10 miles from the transmitter), a Blue Valley K12 district in outer suburban Kansas, and Missouri Western State College, about fifty miles to the north of the transmitter. All tests so far have been successful and schools are now ready to receive the data. The pilot project will end on May 31st but schools may keep the content until next May 31st (2004).

KCPT developed a pre-installation site survey and also met with school personnel to introduce the project and its requirements, as well as to familiarize faculty with datacasting, in general. KCPT will collect responses from users to a brief survey, developed by UMKC's Dr. Kathy Fuger, which will be linked from the interface during the life of the project

For more information about this project, contact Karen Mell, KCPT Director Instructional Broadband & Internet

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