Master File Would Streamline File-Based Production and Distribution

The Material eXchange Format (MXF) is widely acknowledged as a great idea for ensuring that content created with one piece of gear is compatible with a wide variety of production and distribution equipment, both from that same manufacturer and others. It is also designed to help automate certain processes while streamlining the organization and retrieval of clips.
Well, file MXF in the "best-laid plans of mice and men” category. Nearly three years after MXF was first proposed by companies like Snell & Wilcox, the industry finds itself with a variety of proprietary MXF wrappers and different ways of handling MXF files.

The Advanced Authoring Format Association (AAFA), in its continuing efforts to bring the industry to some kind of consensus on all things relating to production and post-some will remember its work on AAF in the handling of editing files for post-production, which began in the mid-90s and is still not complete-is supporting a proposal developed by Turner Broadcasting System for an MXF mastering file format. It would benefit broadcasters and post houses that deal with international clients and multiple versions of a single project.

This is part of an overall broadening of scope of the AAFA, which is now focusing on user-driven application requirements in mastering, HD production, commercial and program delivery and archiving. At the upcoming NAB convention, the AAFA is sponsoring a demonstration of a prototypical way of creating a single master file, known as an inventory file, where a variety of metadata descriptors would live. This file would help time-synchronize the audio and video elements, instructing a video server, for example, to automatically pair English subtitles with a Dutch spoken audio track and video content, for distribution to The Netherlands.

Brad Gilmer, executive director of the AAFA, said the new wrapper would include two parts: an MXF inventory file containing instructions on how to render any one of several different versions of the content, and a number of essence files (e.g. video, audio tracks, subtitles, opening and closing credits in various languages). The essence files would be combined using instructions contained in the inventory file to render a complete version, which might then be sent to broadcasters in a particular country.

For large media organizations having to serve multiple platforms and a diverse collection of countries, this would save time and make the handling of those of disparate clips much more efficient and cost-effective. Turner is naturally leading this charge, as it supplies content globally on a daily basis.

The key for the AAFA is to get users and manufacturers to support the new proposal, and companies like Marquis Broadcast, Omneon Video Networks, Open Cube Technologies, Probel, Quantum, Snell & Wilcox, Softel and TMD, have already expressed their support. Without their help in building the software drivers to make this mastering format a reality, it will never get off the ground. The AAFA is seeking industry comments.

For more information, visit www.aafassociation.org.