MODIFICATION
D -- D - Broadcasting NRC Commission Meetings On The Internet.
- Notice Date
- 4/4/2003
- Notice Type
- Modification
- Contracting Office
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Administration, Division of Contracts, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD, 20852-2738
- ZIP Code
- 20852-2738
- Solicitation Number
- RS-ADM-03-161
- Response Due
- 4/18/2003
- Point of Contact
- Donald King, Senior Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 415-6731, Fax (301) 415-8157, - Joyce Fields, Senior Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 415-6564, Fax (301) 415-8157,
- E-Mail Address
-
dak1@nrc.gov, jaf1@nrc.gov
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- This is a modification to combined synopsis/solicitation number RS-ADM-03-161. The combined synopsis/solicitation number RS-ADM-03-161 is amended as set forth below. NOTE: THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY AMENDMENT TO THE COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION. A WRITTEN AMENDMENT WILL NOT BE ISSUED. The hour and date specified for receipt of responses remains 4/18/03 at 3:00 p.m. local time. Offers must acknowledge receipt of this amendment on each copy of the offer submitted or by separate letter or telegram which includes a reference to the combined synopsis/solicitation number and the amendment number 6. The above numbered combined synopsis/solicitation is amended to respond to vendor questions. Accordingly, ADM-03-161 is amended as follows: (1) Following are responses to questions: QUESTION #1: You mentioned "scrambled" signal from NRC to contractor's site. I assume this would be required if we were to take the feed by fiber to our facility and then webcast. But, would we be able to install our webcasting computer in the rack at NRC, encode the signal there (hands off, remotely),and send it to our distribution network? Would this strategy eliminate the need to scramble? RESPONSE #1: Refer to Task-3 in the SOW which states: "The Contractor shall capture the combined feed via the Contractor's connection to the NRC video-system at the NRC Headquarter's location in Rockville, Maryland, and: 1. encode the content to protect it from alteration and/or corruption; 2. transmit the content from the NRC Headquarter's location to the contractor's offsite webcasting infrastructure; 3. connect the content to the contractor's webcasting webpage; 4. provide free access to the "live" webcast content to all interested parties via the webcast webpage." Please propose solutions that meet these requirements. QUESTION #2: Will any titles or captions, other than the captioning mentioned, be required? RESPONSE #2: The webcast vendor will not be required to perform any captioning. NRC will obtain the services to caption the meeting's discussions in real-time and NRC will then add the captions to the single composite video feed, prior to delivering the feed to the webcast vendor. Refer to Task-3 in the SOW which states: "For those meetings that NRC elects to webcast "live" (while the actual meeting is taking place), NRC will video-tape the meeting's events, add closed-captioned text of the meeting's discussions to "line-21" of the meeting's video image and create a combined feed of the meeting's content (video/audio & closed-caption text)." QUESTION #3: Your AV technician indicated that the archival video version would not require captioning. Will tapes sent to contractor require captioning? If so, will the captioning signal be part of the video or will contractor have to add? RESPONSE #3: Refer to the response to the previous question (#2). The webcast vendor will not be required to perform any captioning. NRC will add captioning to the composite video feed of "Live" webcasts, prior to delivering it to the webcast vendor. If any captioning is desired by NRC for a taped meeting, NRC will add it to the video on the tape, before providing the tape to the webcast vendor. QUESTION #4: Your specifications in the synopsis mentioned " equivalent quality of video image as the RealNetworks software". Is RealNetworks software a requirement, or can we utilize Windows Media software which is considered by industry experts to be the equal to Real Networks in quality? Should we offer a choice, or option, in our pricing proposal? RESPONSE #4: We have decided to modify the current SOW under Task-1, requirement #4 which states: "4. Provide all webcast viewers with "free" (no cost to the viewer) software for download to their computer, which enables them to monitor the NRC meetings being webcast. The viewing software shall provide the viewer with an equivalent quality of video image and sound as the "RealNetworks" software currently used for the NRC's webcasting program. The Contractor shall ensure that all required licensing arrangements are completed in order to make the equivalent software available for free download by NRC webcast viewers from the contractor's webcast website." This current language for #4 is hereby deleted and replaced with the following new language: "4. Provide all webcast viewers with the capability of choosing to view NRC webcasts in two (2) software formats, one of which shall be RealNetworks. The second media player software format is up to the webcast vendor, but both software formats shall comply with all of the SOW requirements. For both software formats, the contractor shall provide all webcast viewers with "free" (no cost to the viewer) software for download to their computer, which enables them to monitor the NRC meetings being webcast. The viewing software shall provide the viewer with an equivalent quality of video image and sound as the "RealNetworks" software currently used for the NRC's webcasting program. The Contractor shall ensure that all required licensing arrangements are completed in order to make the webcast viewing software available for free download by NRC webcast viewers from the contractor's webcast website. At all times, the webcast vendor shall support at least 100 concurrent viewers in any combination of users between the two software formats of media players." QUESTION #5: "Will NRC provide the Fiber connection from the control booth to the cabling location on the P-1 level"? Or; "Is this Fiber connection to be provided by the contractor"? RESPONSE #5: NRC has already established a dedicated line connection between the audiovisual control booth (room adjacent to the NRC Hearing Room) and the P1-11 telephone equipment room. The webcast contractor shall be responsible for providing a dedicated line which can connect to this established NRC line at the P1-11 telephone room location and transport the NRC webcast signal from the P1-11 telephone room to the webcast vendor's offsite webcast infrastructure. Webcast vendors are hereby advised that the established NRC dedicated line between the NRC Hearing Room's adjacent control booth and the P1-11 telephone equipment room is not a fiber connection. Instead, it is an RG-6 coaxial cable with an F-type connector suitable for transporting a composite signal riding on RF on it (an RF signal). (NOTE: You could currently attach this coax cable to the "cable-in" or "TV aerial-in jack" of a normal cable-ready TV and watch the NRC's composite signal of the Commission meeting to be webcast). Additional NRC clarifications of the technical terms used herein are provided below: Composite: This signal has all the colour, brightness and synchronization information mixed together and sent on one wire. In A/V gear you often see a yellow RCA jack (along with a red and white RCA jack). The yellow is for the composite signal, and the red and white are for stereo sound. RF: Take a composite signal and then use it to modulate an RF signal and you get RF. This is what is received on a TV aerial. RF is usually carried over RG-6 coax cable with F-type connectors. In Montgomery county, this is what the cable guy hooks into your TV set. Additionally, webcast vendors are hereby advised that NRC will provide the webcast vendor with sufficient rack-space in the control booth room adjacent to the NRC Hearing Room (instead of the P1-11 telephone room) for the vendor to install the on-site equipment required to encode the NRC webcast composite signal and transmit it to the vendor's off-site webcast infrastructure. To clarify this contract requirement, NRC hereby modifies the SOW to delete the following current language in Section VII NRC FURNISHED MATERIAL AND EQUIPMENT of the SOW in its entirety "The NRC will provide the contractor onsite access for initial installation setup and shall provide limited space and power connection for the contractor's equipment. The NRC shall video-tape the meetings to be webcast and provide the contractor with a combined signal feed (video, audio and closed-caption text) for the meetings designated by NRC for "live" webcasting. For any "live" webcast that experiences a problem during the webcast which makes the "live" feed version unsuitable for use as the "archived" version of the meeting, or for any meeting not "live" webcast which NRC desires to be added to the webpage as an "archived" webcast, NRC will provide the Contractor a VHS tape of the meeting for use in establishing the "archived" version of the meeting on the webcast webpage. The contractor shall be responsible for providing and maintaining all other support to perform the requirements of this contract. The contractor shall monitor all contractor equipment located at the NRC site from an offsite location and shall not maintain a presence at NRC facilities." NRC hereby provides the following new language for Section VII NRC FURNISHED MATERIAL AND EQUIPMENT "The NRC shall video-tape the meetings to be webcast and provide the contractor with a combined signal feed (video, audio and closed-caption text) for the meetings designated by NRC for "live" webcasting. NRC will provide the webcast vendor with sufficient power and rack-space in the control booth room (which is adjacent to the NRC Hearing Room), for the vendor to install the necessary on-site equipment to encode the NRC webcast composite signal and transmit it to the vendor's off-site webcast infrastructure. NRC will provide a dedicated line (an RG-6 coaxial cable with an F-type connector suitable for transporting a composite signal riding on RF on it "an RF signal") between the control booth room and the P1-11 telephone room, for use by the webcast contractor to transmit the encoded webcast signal to the P1-11 telephone room location. At the P1-11 room location, the webcast vendor shall provide the dedicated line necessary to transmit the encoded webcast signal to the vendor's offsite webcast infrastructure. For any "live" webcast that experiences a problem during the webcast which makes the "live" feed version unsuitable for use as the "archived" version of the meeting, or for any meeting not "live" webcast which NRC desires to be added to the webpage as an "archived" webcast, NRC will provide the Contractor a VHS tape of the meeting for use in establishing the "archived" version of the meeting on the webcast webpage. The contractor shall be responsible for providing and maintaining all other support to perform the requirements of this contract. The contractor shall monitor all contractor equipment located at the NRC site from an offsite location and shall not maintain a presence at NRC facilities. The on-site assistance NRC will provide the webcast vendor for NRC "test" or "Live" webcasts is limited to ensuring the vendor's equipment is "turned-on" prior to a webcast and ensuring it is "turned-off" after conclusion of each webcast, if the vendor requests such assistance." GUIDANCE: NRC has decided to have the webcast vendor install the necessary on-site webcasting equipment in the control booth room (adjacent to the NRC Hearing Room) instead of the P1-11 telephone room (as discussed during the on-site walk-thru held on March 13th, 2003) in order to simplify providing the vendor with periodic access to the equipment when necessary, and to enable NRC to easily assist the vendor with the task of ensuring the equipment is "turned-on" before a "Live" webcast and "turned-off" upon the webcast's conclusion. NRC will not make any other adjustments to the vendor's equipment. QUESTION #6: "Can you provide an estimate, based on your current system, of the number of total and/or concurrent viewers of the "On Demand" archived sessions"? RESPONSE #6: Refer to the SOW under Task-1, requirement #3 which states: "3. Have capacity to support up to one-hundred (100) concurrent webcast viewers at 150kbps". QUESTION #7: Dedicated fiber - What are your preferred vendors for telecom support for that building that supply fiber? RESPONSE #7: We have no preferred vendor. QUESTION #8: Is a dedicated fiber line to our server a requirement or would a dedicated T1 or a VPN or some other less expensive secure mechanism also be acceptable? RESPONSE #8: Only a dedicated line is a requirement. A dedicated "fiber" line is not a requirement. Use of any existing NRC IT network to meet this requirement is prohibited. QUESTION #9: Is there an existing example security plan that you could make available to us for review prior to the proposal submittal date? RESPONSE #9: No. QUESTION #10: Do you have a preference where our streaming servers might be physically located within the US? RESPONSE #10: No. QUESTION #11: Is the webcast video (Eg. meeting & captions) going to be different then what you want archived (Eg. meeting only) ? RESPONSE #11: No. The NRC's composite signal for the "Live" webcast (which contains the audio, video and closed-captioning) is the same content that NRC wants the viewers to be able to access in the archived version. The one difference between the "Live" webcast and its archived version is the length of the webcast because NRC does not want the webcast vendor to include the video of the pre-meeting testing (conducted prior to each "Live" webcast) in the archived version of each webcast. QUESTION #12: Are both the webcast and the archives to be made available at all 3 bandwidths or just the webcast? RESPONSE #12: Both "Live" and "archived" webcasts shall be made available in any combination of all 3 bandwidths. QUESTION #13: Would the NRC be responsible for a power up mechanism for the encoder box from the control room or would we? RESPONSE #13: Refer to the response for QUESTION #5 which solves this issue. QUESTION #14: What is the existing fiber on P1 used for? RESPONSE #14: Other functions, un-related to webcasting. QUESTION #15: Can it be used to transmit the composite video for remote encoding? RESPONSE #15: No. It is the contractors responsibility to provide a dedicated line from the NRC room P1-11 telephone room to their offsite webcasting facility. NRC will not allow the use of existing NRC lines between the P1-11 room and the contractor's location. QUESTION #16: If yes, what bandwidth is available on the fiber? RESPONSE #16: See the previous response to Question #15. QUESTION #17: Does NRC have a preferred or current vendor for fiber connectivity out of the building? RESPONSE #17: We have no preferred vendor. QUESTION #18: Does NRC prefer encoding to take place on or off-site? RESPONSE #18: Refer to Task-3 which states this requirement as follows: "For those meetings that NRC elects to webcast "live" (while the actual meeting is taking place), NRC will video-tape the meeting's events, add closed-captioned text of the meeting's discussions to "line-21" of the meeting's video image and create a combined feed of the meeting's content (video/audio & closed-caption text). The Contractor shall capture the combined feed via the Contractor's connection to the NRC video-system at the NRC Headquarter's location in Rockville, Maryland, and: 1. encode the content to protect it from alteration and/or corruption; 2. transmit the content from the NRC Headquarter's location to the contractor's offsite webcasting infrastructure; 3. connect the content to the contractor's webcasting webpage; 4. provide free access to the "live" webcast content to all interested parties via the webcast webpage. " QUESTION #19: Does NRC have a preferred vendor for network connectivity? RESPONSE #19: No preferred vendor. QUESTION #20: Is NRC providing the composite video feed from the control room to the P1 level network room (room P1-11)? RESPONSE #20: Yes, see the response to question #5. QUESTION #21: Is NRC providing a rack and rack space on the P1 level? RESPONSE #21: Yes, NRC will provide a rack and rack-space on-site to accommodate the equipment required to encode and transmit the webcast signal from NRC to the contractor's webcast infrastructure. However, the rack and rack-space will be in the control booth room adjacent to the NRC Hearing Room where the NRC meetings that are to be webcast are held. Refer to the response for Question #5. QUESTION #22: Live viewer history. Can you tell us how many viewers you have had in the past per live webcast? RESPONSE #22: Vendors should plan on supporting at least 100 concurrent viewers during each "Live" webcast. QUESTION #23: Connection Rates. Can you supply us with a breakout of the speed those viewers connected at? How many at 28.8k, 56k and 150k? RESPONSE #23: The breakout of viewer connection rates will change with every webcast based on who is interested in the topic of the NRC meeting being webcast. Vendors should refer to the SOW for the specified webcast system capacities required by NRC. QUESTION #24: Do you currently have a dedicated T1 line or higher to supply us for the broadcast? RESPONSE #24: No. QUESTION #25: Do you want us to host the webpage for you on one of our servers or just develop it for you? RESPONSE #25: Refer to Task-2 in the the SOW which states "Requirement: Develop and host a webpage. The webpage shall be the host site for NRC webcast viewers to gain access to "live" and/or "archived" webcasts of NRC meetings via the Internet during the contract period. To ensure compatibility and a consistent appearance and functionality of the Contractor ‘s webcast webpage with NRC's other webpages, the Contractor shall use the current webcast webpage developed by NIH as the model for developing the new webcast webpage. (Visit www.nrc.gov. and click on "Live NRC Meeting Webcast and Webcast Archive.") " QUESTION #26: In reading all of the modifications that have been posted lately, we noticedthat modification #6 (which was intended to correct a problem with CLINS 16-19) has a problem. These units now have a question mark in front of the hour designation. I am assuming that you still want these units priced in half-hour intervals but I thought I'd give you a heads up about it. It may present itself as a problem later on and I wanted to point it out in case it was important. RESPONSE #26: The unit of measure for CLINs 0016, 0017, 0018, and 0019 is one-half hour. (2) FAILURE OF YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT, TO BE RECEIVED AT THE PLACE DESIGNATED FOR THE RECEIPT OF OFFERS, PRIOR TO OR ON THE DATE AND HOUR SPECIFIED, MAY RESULT IN REJECTION OF YOUR OFFER. (3) Nothing follows. NOTE: THIS NOTICE WAS NOT POSTED TO FEDBIZOPPS.GOV ON THE DATE INDICATED IN THE NOTICE ITSELF (04-APR-2003). IT ACTUALLY APPEARED OR REAPPEARED ON THE FEDBIZOPPS SYSTEM ON 05-MAR-2004. PLEASE CONTACT fbo.support@gsa.gov REGARDING THIS ISSUE.
- Web Link
-
Link to FedBizOpps document.
(http://www.eps.gov/spg/NRC/OA/DCPM/RS-ADM-03-161/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: All work will be performed at the contractor's facility.
- Record
- SN00538413-F 20040307/040305233809 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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