City staffers met with 5280 Digital on Friday to fix bugs within its network of more than 20 microphones used to record meetings in the Loveland City Council Chambers.
On Tuesday, the audio feed of the Loveland City Council’s regular meeting was interrupted multiple times for those listening remotely, and the chamber’s speaker system also issued loud feedback throughout the night.
The council had to take breaks periodically while the problem was addressed.
City spokesman Tom Hacker said the 5280 Digital discovered and repaired an audio component that had been overloading the microphone signals, causing the audio system to malfunction.
“What happened Tuesday was a cascade of failures in our audio system,” he said. “We rely on layers of technology, and when something fails, there’s very little we can do while a meeting is in progress.”
The city uses its system of microphones and four cameras to record Loveland City Council and Loveland Planning Commission meetings, as well as other gatherings held in the chambers, such as the Oct. 10 candidate forum held by the League of Women Voters of Larimer County.
The recordings are later uploaded on the city’s website, and some may be streamed live.
After the meeting, Hacker said staff spent several hours splicing a separate audio recording maintained by City Clerk Patti Garcia under the video of the meeting during moments where the house audio failed.
Tuesday’s recording has since been made available online.
“We had to do whatever was possible to keep the meeting and the broadcast going, and then after the fact make sure every word of that meeting was preserved and available to the public,” he said.
City of Loveland Chief Information Officer Dan Coldiron said that the problem was not related to issues with recording devices that had delayed the release of recordings the previous month.
Coldiron said the city resolved the earlier problem by rebooting the affected device and had since installed a second backup.
