Material eXchange Format (MXF) is a file format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards.

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

See also

• AAF

External links

• http://www.pro-mpeg.org/
• http://mxf.info/
• http://www.irt.de/mxf/