Generation Tech. Completes Cloud Migration

After 30 years of designing, developing, deploying and operating large satellite-centric content distribution networks (CDNs), Generation Technologies Corp. announced today that it has completed migration of its entire customer base of 300 TV stations and news agencies to its premiere, cloud-based CDN, NIMxchange.

Thirty years ago, delivering even a megabit/second of data terrestrially cost as much as $10,000 – $20,000 per month per station. “We designed our satellite-based networks to deliver media and metadata with little more than a dish, IRD and a computer at each station,” says David Cunningham, president of GTC. “Back then, satellites were not just the obvious choice, they were the only choice.”

In the early 1980s, GTC developed specifically-for-satellite, fault-tolerant technology for television, radio and print. By 1994, GTC was replicating metadata with Microsoft’s SQL Server over satellite and by 1998, GTC was delivering motion JPEG video files.

Over the last five years, however, plummeting Internet costs in conjunction with ever increasing demands to deliver more and more news, sports and weather in HD and SD, in MPEG-2 and h.264 formats, and in NTSC and PAL, has completely turned the tables against satellites for file-based CDNs, GTC says. “The demand to support an ever-growing variety of video systems, video formats and definitions goes far beyond what a satellite can multicast,” says Cunningham.

There is no capital investment for either the content holder or the affiliate stations using NIMxchange.