Brittany Thomas

By Shanee Benison

Giving back to the community doesn’t often include a morning of putting and puffing, but at the Houston Cigar Week charity golf tournament, players were able to do exactly that while supporting the Steve Francis Foundation whose mission is to support at-risk youth in the greater Houston and Washington D.C. communities.

CReed Global Media recorded the excitement on the green alongside sports commentator Kim Davis, host of Chalk Talk, to capture some media highlights while sitting with notable guests such as co-founder Kimberly Watkins, former NBA player Major Jones, and TSU’s head football coach Cris Dishman, to talk about cigar week and the meaning of community.

Cigar Week

Co-founder of Houston Cigar Week, Kimberly Watkins was thrilled to share details about how Cigar Week grew from a small weekend festival to an extravagant week-long experience including a summer concert and a ladies night pool party. But beyond cigar smoking, Watkins tells us how events like the charity golf tournament are incredible networking venues for everyone. “[T]hat’s kind of what we always like about Houston Cigar Week, you do not have to be a cigar smoker, but you do need to know that there will be smoke around you.”

Cigar Sponsors

Others caught between rounds of golf include cigar executives, Clint Smith and Saury, from XO Supreme Cigars, who boasted about their authentically grown and rolled cigars straight from the Dominican Republic. For Smith, Houston Cigar Week is about giving back to the community, whether it’s raising revenue for the city and its locally owned businesses’, or raising funds for inner-city and underprivileged youth.

Sports Stars

Happy to talk basketball, Major Jones hit it off with Kim Davis to discuss predictions for the championship in the NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics.

Cris Dishman, TSU’s newly appointed head football coach, briefly describes his vision for on and off the field while fostering a culture of community. Dishman has already given his team a challenge close to home: hit the streets and commit to 24 hours of community service. And they’re responding well. “Some of the guys got 78 [hours], one guy got 130,” Dishman says.

Video Production

The fourth annual Houston Cigar Week held its charity golf tournament in partnership with the Steve Francis Foundation to support initiatives like the basketball academy and scholarship program. CReed Global Media captured this prestigious Houston event and provided video production and digital media services. For other services including strategic communication, marketing, media, and streaming app/TV distribution, contact CReed Global Media at info@creedglobalmedia.com to learn more.

Article by Shanee Benison

Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads resumed Tuesday after an outage knocked out the sites for hundreds of thousands of users around the world.

Streaming TV as a Solution to Social Media Outages

Streaming television apps and technology provided by CReed Global Media can offer a reliable alternative to social media platforms for streaming content, especially during outages like the recent one affecting Facebook, Instagram,  Threads and WhatsApp on March 5, 2024. Here’s how:

Diversification of Platforms 

CReed Global Media distributes its streaming services across various platforms and servers, reducing the likelihood of a widespread outage. Unlike social media platforms, which often rely heavily on centralized servers, streaming services like CGM TV utilize distributed networks and cloud-based infrastructures, making us more resilient to outages.

Redundancy and Backup Systems

CReed Global Media invests in redundancy and backup systems to ensure continuous availability of its streaming services. This includes multiple data centers in different geographic locations, implementing failover mechanisms, and utilizing content delivery networks (CDNs) to efficiently distribute content to users.

Scalability

Streaming services are designed to handle fluctuating demand, scaling resources up or down as needed to accommodate varying viewership levels. This scalability ensures that users can access content reliably, even during peak usage periods when social media platforms might struggle to cope with increased traffic.

Dedicated Infrastructure 

CReed Global Media prioritizes its streaming services by dedicating resources specifically for content delivery, separate from other functionalities like social networking or messaging. This focused approach allows for better optimization and management of streaming resources, reducing the likelihood of service disruptions.

Customer Support and Communication

In the event of an outage or technical issue, CReed Global Media can provide timely updates and support to users through various channels such as email notifications, in-app messages, and customer service. Clear communication helps to alleviate frustration and assures users that efforts are underway to resolve the issue.

Continuous Monitoring and Maintenance 

CReed Global Media employs robust monitoring systems to proactively detect and address potential issues before they escalate into outages. Regular maintenance and updates also help to ensure the stability and performance of streaming services, minimizing the risk of downtime.

CGM Keeps You Streaming

CReed Global Media helps keep streaming television technology up to date and easily accessible online, on smart tv’s and on mobile devices so that it is always a few clicks away. Overall, by leveraging advanced technology and infrastructure, streaming television apps and services offered by CReed Global Media can provide a reliable and uninterrupted viewing experience for users, even during widespread outages affecting social media platforms. This reliability contributes to user satisfaction and loyalty, positioning streaming services as dependable alternatives for entertainment consumption. Contact CReed Global Media at info@CReedGlobalMedia.com  or click here to learn more!

Houston Television Cable PEG Channel: Empowering Community Connection and Positive Impact through Technology Investments

By Ted Irving

Houston Television (HTV) Cable, a remarkable platform that has been serving the Houston community since 1986, is a vital link between the local community and a diverse range of content and programming. This channel, dedicated to Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) broadcasting, has made a significant impact by fostering community engagement, promoting local talent, and delivering valuable information to. Recent strategies surrounding technology and infrastructure at Houston Television has bolstered public awareness of this indispensable asset for the community.

HTV empowers the community by providing the mayor, council representatives, and city departments, a voice to constituents, organizations, and businesses. The Federal mandate for HTV is to provide transparent government through broadcasting and streaming technology. To achieve this, the station has worked with local content delivery house, CReed Global Media, to install 5 Teradek Prism Encoders. Each will handle one of the government channel signals to the HTV local cable partners while also allowing HTV to have its own channel app for Roku, Apple TV, Firestick, Chromecast, and the majority of smart tv manufacturers.

HTV, Houston Television, is also a Ross house. Designed by senior engineer, Al Byers, the house has seven control rooms including broadcast (Master) control, three studios, and our emergency center mini studio with PTZ camera. All areas link back to the new Ross Video Ultrix FR12 Router, the heart of the entire broadcast plant. This new addition gives HTV two new Ultrix Carbonite production switchers, a 90 channel ULTRASYNC frame store and 12 ULTRISCAPE multi-viewers.

Additional Ross upgrades, done in conjunction with partner Digital Resources Inc, include two new Ross Video XPression 4RU 12G character generators, and two new Ross Video TRIA+UHD-202 video playout servers.

The HTV large studio, using local talent Formative Structures, has invested in new set designs for its large studio. Sets are a mix of traditional and digital. Every monitor is fed content via HDMI direct from the terminal room new Ross Ultrix Video Router. Further investments were made, in quarter one of 2023, on a host of lighting grid updates that include DMG Lumiere by Rosco, several FilmTools one ton grip packages, grip accessories for studio use, and a package of Rosco Braq Cubes.

In the HTV small studio, with green screen, a Planar URX100-ER-T988 100” ShareScreen monitor was installed allowing users to pull video or graphics directly from their mobile phone to the screen to decrease recording times. This model also allows for up to 8 simultaneous mobile phone connection with touch-screen access.

In addition to two television studios, HTV boasts a Podcast studio using GoPro cameras on ever microphone with a tie- in to a LiveStream HD550 portable production unit. Audio is processed using an Arrakis Systems console that saves sessions to the station 100TB EditShare LAN. Editors using Davinci Resolve 18 can pull any podcast show, video, or editing project, direct from the Edit-Share. As an added bonus for each editing suite, monitors have been replaced with new ASUS ROG Strix 27” 16:9 Curved screens.

All studios this calendar year were outfitted with Evoko Liso Room Schedulers. City employees, and HTV staff, can now book studio rooms just using Microsoft Outlook Calendar. In addition, new studio cyber keys were installed in June providing more data collection on foot traffic and employee use of rooms.

Houston Television field gear has continued its expansive dive into 4K. All 1080i JVC ENG cameras have been replaced with 4K big brother the JVCGY-HC500U. Each is a solid complement using J-Log in conjunction with the shop Sony A7siii 4K DSLR cameras operated at S-log.

Live television streaming is conducted using several Live-U (LU600) units with HDMI & SDI inputs, along with 10 licenses for Live-U LLU-Smart App use on all employee iPhones.

For multi-cam live streams, or recordings, the station investment included three ACME Go 4K, three LiveStream boxes, several Teradek Bolt 6 Transmitter Receiver Kits, & one ATOMOS Sumo 19. Each is used with a bevy of sliders, such as the Edelkrone SliderPlus , mobile phone gimbals, GoPro gimbals, robust grip kits and more.

The Houston Television government channel has positioned itself to provide the highest quality possible to the public, city employees, and city administration. Going the extra mile to have a positive and informative impact on Houstonians is why we cherish the craft of storytelling, live streaming, and transparency, as we continue to be a beacon for community connection. Contact CReed Global Media at info@CReedGlobalMedia.com  or click here to learn more!

Watch YourGovernment LIVE!

Ted Irving
Director, HTV-Houston Television
832-393-1277 Office
Ted.irving@houstontx.gov
Htvhouston.net

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