TC2Kone - Registration Info

Alexis Park Resort Hotel Early Registration . . ENDED 3/9 !!!

The PBS 2001 Technology Conference is scheduled Friday-thru-Sunday, April 20-22, 2001, at the Alexis Park Resort Hotel in Las Vegas, just prior to the National Association of Broadcasters Convention.
There will both plenary and concurrent sessions presenting Television Engineering and Information Technology oriented content, and registered participants are free to attend any session. We encourage attendance for the entire conference and will be scheduling important presentations across the three days, assuming the vast majority of attendees will choose to be there for the entire period.

We recognize that there are other events taking place across this weekend -- PBS / DTV Workshops, NPR Seminars and NAB Sessions -- and have provided registration options that provide maximum flexibility for attendees.

Full PBS Conference Registration - April 20-22
Single-Day PBS Conference Registration- ANY single day !
DTV Seminar Registration - April 22nd only

Registration desk Please note the following important procedural change !!
For the first time, this year we are requiring advance payment ,either by check or credit card authorization. Registration forms (Word DOC, RTF or Adobe PDF download) must be returned by mail only, with complete credit card information or accompanied by check(s) payable to PBS with full payment for the conference options selected, and guest event tickets. Note that the CPB Transition Fund is offering financial support to qualified attendees. Early registration ends March 9th, and all registration closes on March 30th. There are penalties for cancellations after March 9th. Registrations should be returned ONLY to:

PBS 2001 Technology Conference
Registration
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria VA 22314
Attn: Ralph Schuetz

Cancellations:
Cancellations will be accepted, and full refunds made, for cancellations received before the early registration deadline of March 9th. Registrations canceled after that date but before the registration deadline of March 30th will be refunded less a $100.00 service charge. No refunds will be made for cancellations received after March 30.

Hotel Reservations:
As important as your conference registration is your hotel reservation. If you're planning to come to the conference but haven't yet booked a hotel in Las Vegas, you'll find that there's not a lot of choice in NAB hotels (i.e. the ones with bus transportation to and from the Convention Center) with rooms through the entire period. As of 02/26, the PBS block of rooms at the Alexis Park is full !!

You can work with NAB HOUSING 2001 to find out what is still available (but going fast) in their participating hotels. You can also contact reservation sites (this is only one of many), or the individual hotels directly ( see map23 ) , via the internet, as practically all of them have websites now. Rates do vary substantially from published NAB prices, and will change -- always higher -- as we get closer to the Conference dates.

You may find your best bet is a hotel off "the strip", as they often fill slower, have lower rates, and are generally quieter. . . but you will need to provide your own transportation -- cab or rental car. The AmeriSuites, Hard Rock and St.Tropez are a few of the "off-strip" hotels, near the Alexis Park, where you might avoid transportation problems.
Act fast ! -- There's no need to wait until you register for the conference.

Attendees should note that we're providing most information in downloadable, Adobe Acrobat format. You should have Acrobat Reader, version 4.0 or later, installed on your computer, to properly display and print these documents.

Regular (Three-Day) Conference Registration

We encourage attendance for the entire conference and will be scheduling presentations across the three days assuming the vast majority of attendees will be there for the entire period.

The registration rate for the three day-conference is $360 for registrations postmarked on or before March 9, 2001. After March 9 the registration rate increases to $460. All registrations close on March 30.

Single-Day Registration

For the benefit of engineers who may wish to attend part of the PBS Technology Conference and part of the NAB or NPR engineering seminars that are scheduled during this period, there is a single-day rate.

A single day rate of $250 . . . ($350 for registrations postmarked after March 9) . . . is available for Friday, Saturday or Sunday, and includes the Saturday night social event. All registrations close on March 30

DTV Seminars

The PBS Digital Television Strategic Services Group is offering seminars in Digital Television Studio Technology and Digital Television RF on Sunday, April 22. Either seminar can be substituted for the final day of the Technology Conference for an additional fee, or you may register for one of the seminars on a stand-alone basis.

Add $115. . . (a total three-day rate of $475 or late registration rate of $575 for either seminar, in lieu of the final day of the Technology Conference). You can find more detail about these seminars at PBS.ORG.

Register for one of the seminars on a stand-alone basis for $225 or a late registration rate of $325. (The stand-alone seminar fee includes the conference social event on Saturday evening) All registrations close on March 30

CPB Transition Fund Discount

CPB is offering financial assistance to Transition Fund stations in order to encourage their attendance at the Technology Conference and the DTV Seminars. Call Lisa Richardson at CPB, (202) 879-9741, for eligibility and complete information on their offer of financial aid.

A single representative of CPB Transition Fund stations may deduct $50 from the regular three-day Technology Conference or the combined Technology Conference and DTV Seminar registration rate. (All other registrants from the same station pay the regular applicable rate.)

NPR Workshops at NAB

Based on the strong support for public radio engineering workshops at the Spring NAB, NPR Engineering and Distribution have made arrangements for full day IBOC workshops on Friday and Saturday, April 20 & 21, 2001. Conference rooms are being reserved at the Las Vegas Hilton. Workshop commitments from iBiquity and Harris experts will be focused on public radio's unique needs and interests.

General topics to be covered will include:

Transmission Chain Technical Issues
Digital Dollars - Transition Costs and Funding Sources
Datastream Scalability - Channel Options during Transition and Beyond
Signal Quality (transparency and interference impact)
Distribution Operation and Planning

There is a $150 registration fee to cover sessions, box lunches on Friday and Saturday, as well as workshop materials. Additionally, we are planning a reception for attendees on Friday night, and on Saturday night we have the opportunity to confab with our PBS Engineering colleagues.

There are four updates to the preliminary agenda sent out on February 9th:

iBiquity Digital has offered to include all stations participating in the workshops in their EASE (Early Adopters Station Enchancement) project. This activity involves filling out an equipment survey, to be returned by the end of March, that will generate a customized report assessing your station's readiness to add IBOC transmissions (assuming a standard is endorsed by the NRSC and FCC). Jan Andrews will be e-mailing these forms to workshop registrants shortly.
For those interested, iBiquity has also offered to let workshop attendees have first crack at the mobile demonstration sign-up that will run throughout the NAB convention.
Sascom has agreed to host a Saturady morning early bird demonstration of HDA's AudioCube, an impressive audio restoration workstation that has taken NPR's most critical audio engineers by storm.
Mark Durenberger, former Director of Technical Operations for the CBS Midwest Teleport in Minneapolis will be our dinner speaker on Friday night. Rumor has it that the always popular doorprizes may be in the works courtesy of Bud Aiello. Jim McEachern is coordinating the Saturday night soiree with our PBS Engineering colleagues, and we is also working on continuing the Monday night public radio reception for all of our public radio colleagues.
peical thanks to Studer for sponsoring the engineering dinner on Friday night, to Wenger Corporation for sponsoring both days of workshop luncheons, to Jan Andrews for shepherding the conference agenda, to Cynthia Jones for handling registration, and to all of you for encouraging this long overdue event to take shape. Last, but hardly least, I'd be remiss if I failed to note how supportive Kevin Klose and Ken Stern have been about the importance of trying out this experiment.

Mike Starling
VP, Engineering
NPR

You can find additional details, and access the Workshop Registration form at EUonline (** please register before March 2nd) and contact us with any questions.

Mike Starling, Engineering, [email protected] , 202-513-2484
Jim McEachern, Distribution, [email protected] , 202-513-2660