You Want Your HRTV? It's Coming Soon to a Computer Screen Near You

It's always been hard to tune into Harvard-Radcliffe Television (HRTV). Those crazy fellows who run around the first-year activities fair with a camera and microphone usually disappear soon after.

And unless you happen to be hanging around Loker Commons on a Tuesday night, chances are you haven't seen any of the shows produced by the 60-member organization.

But if HRTV President Adam G. Kosberg '00 has his way, that's all about to change.

With the assistance of a wealthy benefactor, HRTV is embarking on a project that will beam its programming into every student dorm room via the Internet. This new technology, called multicasting, will allow students across the Harvard network to access HRTV programming at regularly scheduled times. HRTV executives hope that students will be watching "Ivory Tower" on their laptops by the end of April, if college administrators comply.

This would be, by all accounts, a tremendous accomplishment for an organization that has been struggling to find a regular audience among Harvard's cable-impaired student body.

The Loker Difference

HRTV was founded in 1990 as a way for undergraduates to get experience in television production, according to former vice president and HRTV mainstay Mandel N. Ilagan '99.

Its first few years, however, were marked by a paucity of productions, and the showing of HRTV programs was limited to House common rooms in the month of April. The audiences were about as slim as the offerings.

The creation of Loker is 1996 was a "boon" for the group, according to Murad S. Hussain '99, former HRTV president. With the introduction of a central location to show its work, HRTV kicked into a higher gear.

Two of the most popular shows were created during the Loker years. "Survey Says," a Family Feud-like game show filmed in the Science Center, was an early success and "TCR," a sketch comedy show, soon followed.

In addition, HRTV moved from its smaller offices into a new studio, housed in and funded by Pforzheimer (then North) House.

With their new digs and support from wealthy Cantabrigian Robert O. Doyle, a former affiliate of North House, the quality of HRTV productions couldn't help but improve.

But as long as shows have been confined to one screen in Loker, HRTV members have been disappointed with the audience turnout.

Ivory What?

It usually takes a few weeks to develop a script for the soap opera "Ivory Tower," and each episode takes about two weekends to film, according to producer and cast member Carrie-Ann Dedeo '00.

Editing and post-production take a few more weeks, she says, and the show's producers must edit until the "last minute" to maintain their six episode-per-semester schedule.

But the show's season premiere this fall only drew about 30 audience members to Loker, according to Dedeo. And that, she says, is an improvement over last year's draw.

"That's just the audience from a lot of cast members telling their friends," she says.

Dedeo says that the low turnout is particularly frustrating to cast members and producers of the show.

"We have a lot of freshman in the cast, and it makes it easier to get freshmen over there," she says. "Getting upperclassmen to go to Loker has been a problem."

Hussain says that HRTV has used all forms of publicity in the past--from kiosk posters to the LED board in Loker.

The posters disappeared last year, Hussain says, because "the campus was reaching posturing saturation" and he was satisfied with the size of their audience.

But HRTV posters will probably return soon, as the Internet expansion takes shape.

"We need to expand the fan base again," Hussain says.

Merlin's Money

That's why Kosberg stormed into office this fall with big dreams--whether through the newly installed common room cable or through new Internet technology. He was determined to get HRTV productions beamed into student dorms.

"Everything feeds on each other," he says. "We can make better-quality shows if more people see them. Web broadcasting is something everyone can access.

HRTV has been receiving technical and financial assistance for the Internet multicasting project from Doyle, who runs a media company called New Media Labs from his Cambridge home.

Doyle's claim to fame was the hand-held game Merlin, which he invented in the 1970s. Merlin, an electronic game similar to Simon, was marketed by Parket Brothers and featured on the cover of Newsweek when it debuted in 1978. About 5 million were sold, according to Doyle.

Doyle acknowledges that he "made quite a bit of money" from the success of Merlin and has since donated an estimated $15,000 worth of equipment to HRTV.

Most of his donations are "indefinite loans" on equipment he thinks is valuable, Hussain says.

Doyle describes it differently.

"I tell the students it's payback time," he says. "Your parents bought Merlins, and now I use the money to give a lot of things."

Before Pforzheimer House spent $10,000 to renovate a library into television studios, much of HRTV's post-production was actually done at Doyle's house, says Hussian, who is also a former Crimson executive. Doyle still hosts training weekends and seminars for HRTV members.

Much of the impetus for multicasting comes from Doyle and Hussian, who pioneered HRTV's Internet presence by placing RealVideo clips of "Survey Says" and "TCR" on the Web.

But the multicasting project is much more ambitious--and, Doyle says, will be far more efficient than the present RealVideo methods.

"Multicasting is a method whereby a server can send out one single copy of the information onto the Internet," says Rick Osterberg '96, coordinator of residential computing support, in an e-mail message.

The process then becomes similar to tuning in to a radio station. Each computer picks up a copy of that same original that is broadcast--thus minimizing server space needed.

Osterberg will make the final decision one HRTV's multicast future since the student group uses College Web space.

"Since video broadcasting and multicasting is a resource-intensive operation, it's something that has to be worked out, and discussed, before jumping head-first into," he says.

Kosberg is confident, however, that Osterberg will clear the necessary hurdles for the multicasting, and that HRTV will be beamed into dorm rooms in the not-too-far distant future.

"HRTV's goal is still to have our multicast channel up and running by April," he wrote in an e-mail message.

Doyle says Harvard's network administrators have nothing but cold feet, and the multicasting project will actually use little of their server space.

"It sounds like some network administrators have been a little afraid of it because it turns the model of the network into something like a television network," he says.

"It is something that can be done properly, and controlling the amount of video data is not a big problem." Doyle says. "It just has to be understood."

So the night may soon come when Harvard students gather 'round their laptops in Lamont to watch the latest episode of "TCR."

And although it isn't cable, for Kosberg and his audience-starved troops, it'll do just fine.