VMX History

Here are some underlying questions people have been asking about Vermont Media Exchange progress.

• When did VMX start?
In August 2007 VMX Alpha Test Group 1, a group of seven access centers, began some testing of computer and network functions connected to digital file-sharing with the group and we’ve work on modifications and improvements to share an application we call VMX 2.0. This version of VMX code performs all the functions described above with minimal custom settings at each Access Management Organization (AMO). All this was initial work was time-consuming and slower than expected.

• What's going on now with VMX and digital file-sharing?
A group of 22 AMOs is now working with the VMX 2.0 code released in late 2009. We are also always aware of national movements in this same digital file-sharing direction because new developments could provide advantages for sharing among Vermont AMOs. The VMX Technical Committee is also exploring ways to share MPEG-2 files for cablecast rather than MPEG-4 files. Metadata is the even less clean transfer side of program sharing and we really have only begun to address the challenge of moving program metadata from one system to another.

• When is this project going to be finished?
VMX is only one small network in an emerging tide of file-sharing networks, but the goal of VMX is to have all VAN members prepared to bring the technology and the content to communities throughout Vermont. The long-term vision is to have AMOs serve as active centers to keep the program-sharing local as well as global. So in some ways we will never “finish” the statewide network. We can only get all AMOs on to an effective network of file-sharing computers connected to local master control systems. It’s what gets shared that is ultimately the most important thing and the hardest part of this transition.