Latin America. SMPTE has teamed up with Avid to release a new standard for the VC-3 codec in interoperable master format (IMF).
The VC-3 standard, a codec implementation that Avid offers under the DNx brand, is a primary production codec used by enterprise media organizations around the world for critical streaming functions such as capture, editing, rendering, base transcoding, and long-term archiving. SMPTE ST 2067-70 is a new standard that specifies an application of the IMF framework covering the use of VC-3 as specified in SMPTE ST 2019-1.
IMF is a major international media standard that provides an interchangeable format and master file structure for content distribution. IMF is a family of SMPTE standards (SMPTE ST 2067) that simplifies the storage of all audiovisual content needed to create different versions for distribution to multiple territories and platforms in a single package.
It is an essential component of modern, large-scale content distribution and has enabled the construction of simplified delivery and processing systems for version control. The IMF package itself can be used for B2B content sharing between content owners, post-production facilities, and distribution platforms.
As VC-3 is a primary production codec used for distribution to a variety of broadcasters, the new ST 2067-70 standard covers its use with IMF, allowing distribution in VC-3 codecs that closely conform to IMF's ideals to maintain the highest possible quality for distribution/rollback and future archiving.
The standard allows any streaming facility to deliver final assets for broadcast/archiving with as much of the original creative intent as possible. It also offers the option to use a constant bitrate (CBR) codec profile, allowing predictability for storage and network transport. Standardization will provide time and cost savings, and avoids quality degradation due to the ability to pass through previously encoded content without having to transcode it into a different format.
The DPP, an organization whose members span the media supply chain, including media production and technology companies, initially approached SMPTE and Avid as co-proponents in the development of this standard, which offers significant workflow advantages over the alternatives currently found in the specification, including easy insertion of changes (before creating a final MFI product) and potentially faster turnaround times.
