MXF
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Material eXchange Format (MXF) is a file format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards.
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A brief summary of MXF
MXF is a "container" or "wrapper" format that supports a number of different streams of coded "essence", encoded with any of a variety of codecs, together with a metadata wrapper which describes the material contained within the MXF file.
MXF has been designed to address a number of problems with non-professional formats. MXF has full timecode and metadata support, and is intended as a platform-agnostic stable standard for future professional video and audio applications.
The MXF Standards
- Base Documents
- SMPTE 377M: The MXF File Format Specification (the overall master document)
- SMPTE EG41: MXF Engineering Guide (A guide explaining how to use MXF)
- SMPTE EG42: MXF Descriptive Metadata (A guide explaining how to use descriptive metadata in MXF)
- Operational Patterns
- SMPTE 390M: OP-Atom (a very simple and highly constrained layout for simple MXF files)
- SMPTE 378M: OP-1a (the layout options for a minimal simple MXF file)
- SMPTE 391M: OP-1b
- SMPTE 392M: OP-2a
- SMPTE 393M: OP-2b
- SMPTE 407M: OP-3a, OP-3b
- SMPTE 408M: OP-1c, OP-2c, OP-3c
- Generic Containers
- SMPTE 379M: Generic Container (the way that essence is stored in MXF files)
- SMPTE 381M: GC-MPEG (how to store MPEG essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 383M: GC-DV (how to store DV essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 385M: GC-CP (how to store SDTI-CP essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 386M: GC-D10 (how to store SMPTE D10 essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 387M: GC-D11 (how to store SMPTE D11 essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 382M: GC-AESBWF (how to store AES/EBU and Broadcast Wave audio essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 384M: GC-UP (how to store Uncompressed Picture essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 388M: GC-AA (how to store A-law coded audio essence data in MXF using the Generic Container)
- SMPTE 389M: Generic Container Reverse Play System Element
- SMPTE 394M: System Item Scheme-1 for Generic Container
- SMPTE 405M: Elements and Individual Data Items for the GC SI Scheme 1
- Metadata, Dictionaries and Registries
- SMPTE 380M: DMS1 (a standard set of descriptive metadata to use with MXF files)
- SMPTE RP210: SMPTE Metadata Dictionary (the latest version is available here: http://www.smpte-ra.org/mdd/index.html )
- SMPTE RP224: Registry of SMPTE Universal Labels
Availability of Standards
SMPTE's top standards page (http://www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards/) has information, for the ordering of CD-ROMs, which would hold formal copy of the SMPTE standards. Judging by SMPTE's index, all of the standards, referenced above, would be contained on those CD-ROMs, as available from SMPTE (http://www.smpte.org/).