16/12/2015
What the f* are all these
formats?
A C HRISTM A S JOURNEY THROUGH M EDIA FIL ES
BR UC E DE VL I N, C H I E F M E DI A S C I E NTI S T, DA L E T
Let’s start with the f* formats
1
16/12/2015
F*
What’s the Function of all those formats?
What’s the Fun in all those formats?
What’s the Frame Rate of all those formats?
What’s the Function of all those formats?
What’s the FourCC Code of all those formats?
What’s the Features of all those formats?
What’s the Full History of all those formats?
What’s the Foundation of all those formats?
What’s the Future of all those formats?
Why is Bruce speaking?
I believe in education
If we don’t learn from the past …..
I had a little hand in the wonderful …
Which considered a LOT of file formats back in the 1990s
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16/12/2015
And what’s he going to speak about
History, Hardware, Hard Designs, Hope, Horror
Audio Files
Video Files
Wrappers
Caption Files
Happy Birthday MXF
Christmas wishes…
History, Hardware, Hard Designs,
Hope, Horror
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16/12/2015
History
All designed with tightly coupled,
short-term-optimised,
“elegant” interactions
between essence & wrapper
stl
The floppy world – hard designs
Joy of the RS422 interface lead
Media files == metadata & captions – STL 3.5” metadata
Capacity limits
stl
………..
Total Number of Disks (TND)
The total number of disks in the set corresponding to one complete subtitle list.
The maximum number of disks is 9.
Disk Sequence Number (DSN)
The disk sequence number, starting with number 1 for the first disk in the set
and increasing to the number contained in the TND code, for the last disk.
Country of Origin (CO)
……..
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16/12/2015
HDD world – hard designs
RM03 inappropriate for video (or audio) 67MB, 1.2MiB/s, 35ms seek
10MB HDDs could just about do audio
CPUs could process audio
• Big endian vs Little endian architecture
• At least 2 formats for ordering bytes
• Cross platform code development & OOD in its infancy
Quantel Harry & Paintbox were cutting edge
Digital tape format proliferation is taking off
Dalet
RAID
Move from custom hardware
• … to custom file systems + gateways
• sPIrint, DVS Prontosore, Pinnacle
• Tek (Omneon) & gxf, ftp oriented formats
File formats start
• because proprietary formats can now leak out
of the closed environment into the wide world
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16/12/2015
Meanwhile …
Apple Quicktime – multi-personality disorder
Microsoft Windows media, tip toe around patents and trying to
build a gaming industry
Adobe – Flash in the pan
Streaming (RTP) never quite takes off
• Problems router support
• Security suddenly an issue
– no-one wants to be in public with their ports open
The enlightenment age - Hope
Suddenly by 2000
• CPUs fast enough, disks big enough , memory cheap enough.
Pro-MPEG Study began:
• What business problem we were trying to solve? .. More of that later
• Make a single, simple, free, easy to understand format for everyone to use
IT companies fixing Pro-sumer & FCP-7 set to rule the world
6
16/12/2015
Horror
Remember
• Recorded media didn’t kill TV didn’t kill cinema didn’t kill radio didn’t kill newspapers
How many of these formats are actually dead?
• .stl
• .aes
• .gxf
• .lxf
• .mxf
These formats leaked out and stayed out.
Not just in archives – they’re still in use!
More Horror
Standards sohpistication is such that
•∑
∑
10,000
It’s easier to invent something proprietary
… than to accurately meet a standard
But – it costs MUCH more to meet all the proprietary standards
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16/12/2015
The interoperability dilemma
End users want to exercise choice
•
•
•
•
To use the right codec for the right application
To have big files when quality matters
To have small files when space matters
To have any resolution
• But what price flexibility if you want …
• a cheap, generic, standard product?
The interoperability dilemma
End users want to exercise choice
•
•
•
•
To use the rightAVC-Intra,
codec for
the right application
Cineform, DVCam, DVC Pro, DNxHD, ProRes HQ, ProRes
To have big files444,
when
quality
matters
HuffYUV,
IMX,
MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-2, H.264, JPEG 2000, MJPEG,when
On2 VP6,
Theora,
Unc 422, Unc 444, WebM, WMV, VC-1,
To have small files
space
matters
XDCAM
To have any resolution
• But what price flexibility if you want a cheap generic product?
AAC, AAC HE, AIFF, AMR, AES, BWF, Dolby D,
Dolby D+, Dolby E, MPEG1-II, MP3, Ogg, WAV
23v x 13a x 14w = 4,186 formats
17,518,410 tests (in * out)
use a 90sec test clip …
AVI, DPX, GXF, MPEG PS, MPEG TS, MPEG MP4,
MXF AS02, MXF AS03, MXF OP-ATOM, MXF
OP1a, QuickTime, ASF, WMV, RIFF
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16/12/2015
The interoperability dilemma
End users want to exercise choice
•
•
•
•
To use the rightAVC-Intra,
codec for
the right application
Cineform, DVCam, DVC Pro, DNxHD, ProRes HQ, ProRes
To have big files444,
when
quality
matters
HuffYUV,
IMX,
MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-2, H.264, JPEG 2000, MJPEG,
On2
VP6,
Theora,
Unc 422, Unc 444, WebM, WMV, VC-1,
To have small files when space matters
XDCAM
To have any resolution
• But what price flexibility if you want a cheap generic product?
AAC, AAC HE, AIFF, AMR, AES, BWF, Dolby D,
Dolby D+, Dolby E, MPEG1-II, MP3, Ogg, WAV
23v x 13a x 14w = 4,186 formats
17,518,410 tests (in * out)
use a 90sec test clip …
50 years to fully test
AVI, DPX, GXF, MPEG PS, MPEG TS, MPEG MP4,
MXF AS02, MXF AS03, MXF OP-ATOM, MXF
OP1a, QuickTime, ASF, WMV, RIFF
File Formats kill margins!
End users want to exercise choice
•
•
•
•
To use the right codec for the right application
To have big files when quality matters
To have small files when space matters
To have any resolution
• But what price flexibility if you want a cheap generic product?
Formats 2 x SD +
3x(23.98, 25, 29.97, 30) HD +
4 internet & web x 2 audio layouts
= (2 + 12 + 4) x 2 x 50yrs =
1800 years
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16/12/2015
Designing for change
8 years ago…
•
•
•
•
Today’s display devices did not exist
Today’s “Heavy Lifting” file formats did not exist
The servers running transcode farms did not exist
A “typical” 2011 central storage system was too expensive
Yet…
• Engineers are expected to build media systems with 5-10yr life
• Archive ingest systems were expected to “finish” by now
How do you design for change?
Why are application specs a good idea?
WITH APPLICATI O N SPECS
WITHO U T APPLICATI O N SPECS
High chance files just work
High chance transcoding needed
High chance the metadata is right
High chance of metadata rework
Vendors use a common, small test set
Vendors have an infinite test matrix
Costs can be controlled
Cost have external influences
10
16/12/2015
Audio Files
IFF
The grandaddy (mummy?) of them all
Introduced by Electronic Arts in 1985 (30 years!)
• Interoperable exchange Commodore-Amiga
Key points:
• A file is a series of hierarchical chunks
• starting on an even address (thanks Motorolla)
• With a TypeID (i.e. the FourCC / OSType)
• Group chunks “FORM”, “LIST”, “CAT”
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16/12/2015
RIFF, AIFF
In 1988 we got AIFF
• Big Endian Apple variant
In 1991 we got RIFF
• Little endian IFF from Microsoft & IBM – Windows 3.1 multimedia
.wav
“WAVE” - RIFF with CD bitstreams @ 44.1kHz
• Compression and multichannel audio added later
Bwav
EBU extensions to wav – adding BEXT chunks (EBU tech 3285)
RF64
extension to wav structure to allow files > 4GB (EBU tech 3306)
MP3 players
Surround streams for cinema then consumer
Formats trickle downstream & formats leech upstream
Other random audio formats
.3gp
3GPP container (mp4 derivative) for AMR group of codecs
.aac
ADTS or ADIF containers with MP2 or MP4 bitstreams
.aes
AES wire line – captured to disc
.flac
free lossless audio codec – often wrapped with ogg
.m4a
MPEG4 audio – usually aac
.m4p
aac with Apple DRM
.mp3
MPEG2 layer 3 -
.ogg
usually vorbis codec (think free mp3) wrapped in ogg
.ra
Real Media audio
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16/12/2015
The world of free
Free music led to free tools
Free tools led to free formats
Broadcasters & Post houses & vendors hate spending money
• Free is a four letter word
• Those formats – often well documented cores with poor extensions
• Leak upstream and end up in the pro world
• Money is saved during the project
• Money is haemorrhaged recovering & archiving the project
Video Files
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16/12/2015
Video file formats
Probably only 3
• .gif
• .png
• .m2v
Video file formats
Probably only 3
• .gif
• .png
• .m2v
Probably only 3 common silent movie formats
• All the others are technically wrappers
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16/12/2015
Wrappers
Consumer Files
.asf
.avi
.dif .dv
.divx
.flv
.gif
.mkv
.mov
.mp4
.pes .ts
.ts .mts
Theora
.vp3 - 8
.wmv
.webm
Advanced system format – serialised object RIFF replacement
Another variant of the RIFF ecosystem
Raw dv blocks serialised to a file
DivX proprietary wrapper for their codecs (MPEG4-2 & h.264 like)
Flash video
Yes, really
Matroska (russian doll) EBML based (like binary XML)
quicktime file – contains editing information
ISO standardised form of quicktime (ISO/IEC 14496-12:2004)
various program stream variants
various transport stream variants
originally .vp3 until it forked. ogg wrapped (HTML5 controversy!)
raw On2 video streams often in flash /ogg wrapper
Windows Media Video (VC-1) in asf. Big news @ SMPTE
google’s open source vp8
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16/12/2015
Editing files
Optimised for random access
• .avi
free tools for “build it yerself” users
• .mov
FCP + apple hardware + mov = reliability
• .mxf
growing files an advantage
The wrapper hides codec support issues
• Timecodes, offsets, synchronisation
• Intra vs Long Gop
• Clean start / fast start vs Handles
Camera Files
Optimised for open ended recording
• MXF variants
•
•
•
•
P2
XDCAM
AVCIntra, AVC LongG, AVC Ultra
X-AVC
• Quicktime variants
• RAW variants
• Software matched to sensor required
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16/12/2015
Server Files
Originally a closed system
• One format – files should never escape
• e.g. Pinnacle Systems
Then
• Quasi-published formats
• .gxf, .lxf, quicktime reference
Ultimately
• Any format streamed from NAS / Cloud
• e.g. Harmonic, Grass & Nexio ranges
Mezzanine files
Originally the wild west
Ultimately
• MXF or Quicktime
• Codecs range from HD AVC LongG @ 25Mbps to HD J2k @500Mbps
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16/12/2015
Lightweight compression
New breed of link codecs
• Dirac
• TICO
• J2k
• Others…
If it exists on a wire …
• … It will end up on a file
• … No time to standardise it
• … Lots of time to spend on engineering resources to make interoperable
Timecode
At this point we have to mention timecode
Many formats don’t support it, but the Pros NEED it
they told me so…..
…and they claimed to know the difference between want & need
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16/12/2015
Why is timecode important?
Timecode indicates the timing of each frame. It is used to ensure:
Alignment between independent devices (e.g. video and audio recorders)
Alignment between assets (e.g. captions and video)
Correct edit points (e.g. cutting at the correct time)
Accurate playback duration
Why 29.97?
Black and white television was 30 frames per second, with
luminance (FM) and audio (AM) at a fixed frequency distance (4.5 MHz)
Adding the color carrier frequency required inserting a third band…
Without causing artifacts on the existing black and white TV sets
So, color carrier frequency needed to be an odd harmonic of half line frequency
Some math was done…
Ratio of Horizontal line rate change = 1.001 : 1,
30fps / 1.001 = 29.97
“It’s Backwards Compatible!”
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16/12/2015
Why 29.970029970029970029970029970299700…?
Black and white television was 30.000000000 frames per second, with
luminance (FM) and audio (AM) at a fixed frequency distance (4.5 MHz)
Adding the color carrier frequency required inserting a third band…
Without causing artifacts on the existing black and white TV sets
So, color carrier frequency needed to be an odd harmonic of half line frequency
Some math was done… and this solution was the best compromise!
Ratio of Horizontal line rate change = 1.001 : 1,
30fps / 1.001 = 29.97
“It was a Backwards Compatible Solution!”
Common Perceptions about DF vs. NDF
Generally people don’t understand why we have fractional frame rates
00:00:00:00
30 fps
00:00:00;00
29.97 fps
Colon!
Semi-Colon!
Why on earth did we do this? It just means s*#@ will fall on the floor!
20
16/12/2015
Common Perceptions about DF vs. NDF
Colon!
Semi-Colon!
Why on earth did we do this? It just means s*#@ will fall on the floor!
The problem with 29.97 time code…
“It’s just like leap years”
Your video is running at 29.97 frames per second
If you count to 30 for every second, you will be off by 108 frames per hour
This is 3.6 seconds per hour, or roughly 2 minutes every day
Congress refused to change the standard duration of a minute
and refused to speed up the rotation of the earth, so…
A new time code scheme was invented to account for the difference
21
16/12/2015
Teaching your child to count the DF way
“It’s just like leap years”
Duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days
We have February 29th when the year number is a factor of 4
Except on centuries…
… that are not multiples of 400
Example:
• 1701 and 1700 and were not leap years
• 1996 and 2000 were leap years
Teaching your child to count the DF way
“It’s just like leap years”
Duration of a 29.97fps hour (at 30fps) is 108 frames too long
So, we skip two frames every minute
Drop-frame timecode skips ;00 and ;01
… except on multiples of ten minutes
Example:
• 00:05:59;28 – 00:05:59;29 – skip two – 00:06:00;02 – 00:06:00;03
• 00:09:59;28 – 00:09:59;29 – 00:10:00;00 – 00:10:00;01
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Example: The “I don’t know what I have” problem
Imagine a world …
Captions had be created, QC’d and aligned manually
Time to digitize the archive!
Some caption originals existed
Some were 23.98
Some were 29.97
Some were 30.0
Some were aligned to 1st frame
Hole
$$$
Some were aligned to start of clock
Some were aligned to the moon (or maybe the tides)
Caption Files
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16/12/2015
Once Upon a Time in a Standards Body far far away
1927 – The Jazz Singer. Talking pictures replaced silent films.
1947 – Emerson Romero puts captions between picture frames.
1948 – Captioned Films for the Deaf (CFD) captions America the Beautiful.
1971 – First National Conference TV for the Hearing Impaired, Nashville, TN
1972 – BBC CEEFAX, 1973 – ITA Oracle
1976 – Teletext and then 1986 – World System Teletext
1991 – EBU 3264 – STL published
1999 – EIA 708B approved
2001 – A/53B approved
2006 – SMPTE ST-436 published
2010 – ST-2052 published (SMPTE-TT)
What’s interesting about
these standards?
2012 – EBU-TT published
2015 – TTML IMSC1 published
Once Upon a Time in a Standards Body far far away
1927 – The Jazz Singer. Talking pictures replaced silent films.
1947 – Emerson Romero puts captions between picture frames.
1948 – Captioned Films for the Deaf (CFD) captions America the Beautiful.
1971 – First National Conference TV for the Hearing Impaired, Nashville, TN
1972 – BBC CEEFAX, 1973 – ITA Oracle
1976 – Teletext and then 1986 – World System Teletext
1991 – EBU 3264 – STL published
1999 – EIA 708B approved
2001 – A/53B approved
2006 – SMPTE ST-436 published
2010 – ST-2052 published (SMPTE-TT)
What’s interesting about
these standards?
Which ones are
predominantly B2B?
2012 – EBU-TT published
2015 – TTML IMSC1 published
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16/12/2015
$$ Captions are REALLY important $$
• Captioning – it’s the law
Pictures and Sound are optional.
You
You have
have to
to show
show captioning.
captioning
Or else…
Typical Captions workflow
•
•
•
•
And you expect this to
work?
15 inputs x 22 outputs
= 330 test cases
x display modes for each standard
= many 1000s of tests
MXF
TS
MXF
GXF
1. Identify the captioning
source
2. Transcode video, audio
& captions
etc
MOV
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
PS
VANC – 708
VANC – OP47
VBI – in-vision
VBI – proprietary server (1)
VBI – proprietary server (2)
VBI – proprietary server (3)
MXF ST-436
Quicktime
AVID DNxHD (pre-2011)
GXF
LXF
.stl
.cap
.scc
.mcc
.ttml (SMPTE-TT / EBU-TT)
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
A/53
In-vision VBI (608)
In-vision VBI (teletext)
DVB subtitle bitmaps
SAMI
SMIL
Echostar proprietary
.xif
.890
Other proprietary
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16/12/2015
Why don’t we use Mezzanines?
•
•
•
•
(15 inputs + 22 outputs) x 3ish formats
= 100 test cases
x display modes for each standard
= several 100s of tests
.imf
MXF
GXF
.mxf
It might just work!
MXF
.ttml
TS
1. Identify the captioning
source
2. Transcode video, audio
& captions
etc
MOV
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
PS
VANC – 708
VANC – OP47
VBI – in-vision
VBI – proprietary server (1)
VBI – proprietary server (2)
VBI – proprietary server (3)
MXF ST-436
Quicktime
AVID DNxHD (pre-2011)
GXF
LXF
.stl
.cap
.scc
.mcc
.ttml (SMPTE-TT / EBU-TT)
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
A/53
In-vision VBI (608)
In-vision VBI (teletext)
DVB subtitle bitmaps
SAMI
SMIL
Echostar proprietary
.xif
.890
Other proprietary
Lack of standards…
26
16/12/2015
Happy Birthday MXF
MXF
Bruce’s MXF funding proposal to UK government in 1997
rejected because the problem was already solved
MXF origins - “Call it Eminem – he’s a rapper”
Joe Zaller 1998
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16/12/2015
From 2005: The problem – too many formats…
User 1
User 2
User 3
User 4
ingest
ingest
ingest
ingest
F1
F1
F5
F6
F2
F3
edit
F1
F4
edit
F6
F3
edit
F6
F3
edit
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V3, V4
Vendors
playout
V1, V4, V5, V6
playout
Vendors
V2, V5, V7
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V6, V7
From 2005: The problem – too many formats…
User 1
ingest
All the vendors
F1
implement all the formats
User 2
ingest
all the
time
F1
User 3
User 4
ingest
ingest
F5
F6
F2
F3
edit
F1
F4
edit
F6
F3
edit
F6
F3
edit
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V3, V4
Vendors
playout
V1, V4, V5, V6
playout
Vendors
V2, V5, V7
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V6, V7
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16/12/2015
From 2005: The problem – too many formats…
edit
ingest
F1
We can’t standardize the choice of:
F2
F3
•User
video2 codec
ingest
• audio codec
F1
F4
edit
•User
number
3 of audio channels
ingest
F5
• vendor
F6
F3
edit
User 4
F6
F3
edit
User 1
ingest
F1
F6
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V3, V4
Vendors
playout
V1, V4, V5, V6
playout
Vendors
V2, V5, V7
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V6, V7
From 2005: The problem – too many formats…
F2 edit
Vendors
ingest
F1
playout
F3
We can standardize the choice of wrapper to make it easier to handle
V1, V2, V3, V4
the:
F1 edit
Vendors
•User
video2 codec
ingest
F1
playout
F4
V1, V4, V5, V6
• audio codec
User 1
•User
number
3 of audio channels
ingest
F5
• vendor
F6
F3
edit
User 4
F6
F3
edit
ingest
F6
playout
Vendors
V2, V5, V7
Vendors
playout
V1, V2, V6, V7
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16/12/2015
Opinions
DANGER
OPINIONS
AHEAD
I ASKED FO R O PINIO NS FRO M A NU MBER O F CO MPANI ES
ARO U ND THE WO RLD…
MXF in JAPAN
ARIB TR-B31
• “Technical Methods for File-based Program Exchange”
• MXF localization for Program exchange in Japan
• Which provides following
• Packaging Method (Folder Structure)
• Program Exchange Metadata
• Japanese Closed Caption Insertion for MXF
JBA T-031 (JBA=the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association)
“File-based Television Program Exchange Provisional Standard”
• Standard for Program and CM material Exchange between commercial
broadcaster in Japan under ARIB TR-B31
• Compatible with conventional HDCAM program exchange
• Provides XDCAM, P2, GF for exchange medium
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16/12/2015
What is stopping MXF penetrating the
Advertising industry in the USA?
Media Outlets and online video publishers will accept ads in a
variety of digital formats
• Including MPEG2, PRORES, MPEG4
• Media outlets transcode files to whatever formats they need for their needs
Commercial distribution and production companies follow Media
Outlet specifications
Passage of SMPTE Digital Ad Slate (Embedding standardized
Advertising metadata in MXF files) has been delayed
• Passage of this SMPTE document would accelerate MXF advocacy
Advertisers and Ad Agencies have not been educated in the
efficiencies of using MXF single distribution format for ads
• If they were, they would be advocating for it!
Adobe
Premiere Pro has had native MXF decode and encode for many
years
Every release adds new essence support and that support is
industry leading in its range
Thousands of broadcasters worldwide depend on Premiere and
AME in MXF-based workflows
Media Browser natively understands file-based camera directories
and presents the user with scrubbable media
MXF has definitely made the marketplace better and generally
more controlled.
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16/12/2015
Advanced Media Workflow Association
Application Specifications (ASs) - successes and failures
AMWA ASs have always been created to satisfy a perceived business
need
Successes have been achieved because the need remained constant
and the specification was delivered quickly (for example, AS-11)
Failures have occurred where the requirements changed and / or the
specification took a long time to finalise (for example, AS-02)
Change in consumer demands and technology are accelerating
This makes us vulnerable to shifting requirements
In the future we need to be light on our feet and efficient in finding
solutions
www.AMWA.tv to keep up to date
Archimedia Technology
2013 all-formats
reference player
2011 Emmy SAMMA JPEG2000 in MXF
SMPTE 2013 ‘It’s A Retrieval Problem, Not A Storage Problem’
SMPTE 2015 Australia ‘The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth’
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16/12/2015
How has MXF helped cinema?
Digital Cinema Initiatives
• Cinema needed 6 reels of MXF images, MXF sound, subtitles & control
• Cinema needed secure encryption – MXF was enhanced to do this
• ASDCP.lib – free libraries for MXF testing
• In 8 years
•
•
•
•
•
About 150,000 movies
To about 140,000 cinemas
Giving about 1,000,000,000 showings worldwide
Almost no dark screens due to MXF
Get the Application specification right and MXF is very reliable!
Digital Production Partnership (DPP)
UK wide MXF file format AS-11 UK DPP
UK File Day 1st October 2014
1 year on the statistics speak for themselves;
• Over 10 000 programme files successfully delivered!
• MXF and essence checks aligned with EBU QC Items
• A single MXF based file compliance check has caught ALL errors
• AMWA and DPP run a QC device certification for file compliance testing
• AS-11 MXF has given the DPP broadcasters a “self contained” programme
package that Craft and Production teams can understand
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16/12/2015
How has MXF affect OpenCube / EVS
OpenCube joined EVS in 2010
EVS still active in MXF implementation and has kept active all OEM
customers using MXFTk
MXF current implementation is driven by:
• New ENG camera format (XDCam, P2, …)
• Master format per country: ARD-ZDF, AS-11, AS-10 in France, IMF, …
EVS active in MXF file format legalisation with EVS Ingest Funnel
and the use of BPM (Business Process Management)
EVS active in new AS definition: ex. AS-07 with AMWA and US LoC
EVS has decided to slow down his MXF implementation effort
when it becomes a commodity: ex. DCP
Grass Valley
MXF is a Wild West of media formats – No Laws!
Too much choice means many MXF flavours
Playout servers had to validate many flavours
of MXF
Some people think that creating constrained MXF flavours means
that MXF is a failure
The same issue has occurred with BXF
The Broadcasting Industry is no good at software standards
The Broadcasting Industry needs to change the way it does
standards
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16/12/2015
MOG Technologies
How has MXF changed in the last 10 years. How have SDK customers changed?
Initially, SDK customers just wanted to support “MXF”
Now there are several MXF-based specialized “flavours”, with increased
interoperability
• Customers want to be able to read and create them, e.g. Sony XAVC, Panasonic AVC Ultra,
Avid OP Atom, AS-11, DPP, ARD/ZDF, etc.
MXF has been continuously extended to map new codecs, and customers want
that too: AVC, HEVC, DNxHR, etc.
In the last years we’ve seen much interest in:
• Higher resolutions, e.g. UHD
• Edit-while-recording workflows, leveraging MXF’s flexibility with regards to the file
structure
• Carriage of ancillary data, e.g. closed captions
• Compliance checking tools for automated quality control
Panasonic Corporation
Panasonic have been adopting MXF as P2 essence file format since 2005,
selecting Operational Pattern Atom and 1b suitable for acquisition
MXF has greatly contributed to establishing the P2 file-based workflow
with partner companies and guarantee of the interoperability
Acquisition
OP-Atom/OP-1b
Low Res. Server
Editing
NLE
On-Air
On-Air Server
P2 Card
Ingest
Material Server
Archive
This slide is on behalf of Panasonic
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16/12/2015
Sony Corporation
An exchange format in each region/group
Contributed to the SMPTE standardisation
• ST 377-1: MXF
• ST 381 suite of documents: MPEG Mappings
• ST 383, 386, 387: DV/D10/D11 Mappings
• ST 385: Content Packages
Standardisation
ARIB TR-B31
AMWA AS-10
ARD_ZDF_HD01
Joined MXF development
in Pro-MPEG Forum
Disclosed Sony MXF implementation
RDD 9 - MXF Interop. Spec. of
Sony MPEG Long GOP Products
RDD 3 - e-VTR MXF
Interop. Spec.
2000
2005
2010
RDD 32 - XAVC MXF Mapping
and Operating Points
2015
Implementation
Launched
in 2003
From SD, HD to 4K, over 400,000 Sony products support MXF
Utilised MXF OP-1a consistently to allow easy support by 3rd parties
Telestream
Primarily affected our Transcoding business… did MXF bring
interoperability?
Answer: If one decoder can’t read the output from another encoder…
The first few years were spent chasing different “flavours” of MXF
• Each broadcast server did things slightly differently
• Some vendors used an “MXF” extension… and the files were not even MXF!
Then things started to normalize…
• Sony MXF variants emerged as a neutral “common ground”
AMWA specifications allowed for some interpretation…
• AS-02, AS-03 were specific in structure but loose in specifics…
• … but as always, once people get things working, no problem!
• DPP AS-11 MXF was an excellent program, a good example of doing it right
Growing file support within MXF was a huge advancement
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16/12/2015
Christmas Wishes
Bruce’s Christmas wishes
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16/12/2015
Bruce’s File Format Christmas wishes
1. System architects consider the TCO of file formats
• not just the capital cost of software / transcoders / editors
2. Implementers consider interoperability
• During the code design phase and not at the validation stage
• We should compete on product functionality, not the ability to read a file
3. Better collaboration at a commercially significant scale
• leading to interoperability e.g. country level not a single post house install
Wishing You A Well Formatted Christmas
Thank you
Questions?
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