As we go to press IPMX (Internet Protocol Media Experience) has been released. Officially defined, IPMX is a set of open standards and specifications to enable the carriage of compressed and uncompressed video, audio, and data-over-IP networks for the Pro AV market. It includes provisions for control, copy protection, connection management, and security.
There are already IPMX-ready products on the market, and now that the standard is ratified there will be more, potentially as soon as InfoComm.
The standard has been seven years in the making. As most people are aware, it’s based on a previously released standard SMPTE 2110. The collaborators on IPMX set out to codify the differences that AV would require. IPMX is sometimes referred to as SMPTE 2110 “plus the differences”.
IPMX was designed to take into account both high-resolution media and IP distribution, while factoring variables that are unique to AV. The AV industry has always operated in the hybrid future. Files are bigger than IT and may need sync. Media distribution platforms and playback scenarios in AV are different from the known screens of broadcast. AV is often bi-directional, live, and streamed (sometimes simultaneously). AV content may be unedited or post produced or both. It operates on both purpose-built networks and on shared IT networks. It encompasses necessary proprietary standards and, until now, insufficient open standards. AV uniquely converges a range of assets–professional video and audio equipment, Pro AV signal management, and enterprise PC/IT equipment. The industry has successfully wrangled all this in different ways, some of them proprietary, some of them utilizing non-IP
methods to bridge across asset types. IPMX was designed to be an open standard that allowed AVoIP to stay in IP across the entire signal chain.
The principal collaborators on this epic adventure include SMPTE, the European Broadcast Union (EBU), and AES. Those who may be less familiar include the Video Services Forum (VSF), the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), the Joint Taskforce on Networked Media (JT-NM), and the primary face of IPMX, the AIMS Alliance.
These participating organizations all include various Pro AV individuals and manufacturers. On a personal level, I would like to acknowledge the late Dave Chiappini, who entertained and answered literally hours of questions from me as the standard unfolded and who upheld the standards-making tradition of unlimited enthusiasm and nerdiness. My other guides to this world were Sam Recine, also of Matrox and Andrew Starks of Macnica. I know there were many more individuals and companies who lead and participated in the effort.
The standard now begins a new evolution IRL. ISE was a public-facing watershed for IPMX. It was there driving interoperability of products both explicitly in interop demonstrations and under the hood on other booths. We can expect to see even more at InfoComm
as more manufacturers and the industry at large figures out how this open standard fits into the future of AV.
