In January, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) headquarters in Geneva hosted the first official IPMX Certification Test Event—a milestone for the professional AV industry. Held from January 19 to 23, the event provided manufacturers with a clear pass-or-fail outcome based on the Video Services Forum (VSF) IPMX Test Plan TR‑10 TP‑1. Over the course of five demanding 10‑hour days, 25 engineers from around the world gathered to validate their products against a rigorous set of IPMX requirements.
Products that successfully completed the test plan are now listed in the solutions.aimsalliance.org, granting them official permission to display the IPMX name and logo. Ten companies—Adeas, BridgeTech, Cobalt, Evertz, intoPIX, Matrox, Nextera, Panasonic, PlexusAV, and Novastar—earned certification, representing a total of 48 products. PacketStorm Communications also received a certificate for one product used as an IPMX Certification Support Tool.
The results were announced at ISE 2026 in Barcelona, marking the official readiness of certified IPMX products for deployment—many of which are already shipping.
Laying the Groundwork
Among those behind the event was Jack Douglass, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at PacketStorm Communications. Douglass’s experience in standards work reaches back to the analog modem and DSL era. He chaired the 2015 PTP interoperability testing, led multiple ST 2110 interop events, and the VSF/JT‑NM Interop Experts Group that planned the JT‑NM Tested Event at Riedel in Wuppertal, Germany, during the pandemic. Today, he serves as co‑chair of the VSF IPMX Activity Group.
The certification initiative was conceived collaboratively by the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), the Video Services Forum (VSF), and the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA). Acting as an independent test house, the EBU administered the IPMX Test Plan to ensure neutrality and technical integrity.
Jack Douglass and Jean Lapierre of Matrox co‑chair the VSF IPMX Activity Group, which developed the IPMX Technical Requirements (TR‑10‑X) documents and the Certification Test Plan. The plan evolved through weekly meetings of IPMX manufacturers and was thoroughly validated during a series of “Dirty Hands” test events—hands‑on workshops designed to confirm that every test procedure was clear and reproducible.
From “Dirty Hands” to Certified Standards
“The IPMX Certification Test Event was not like the previous Dirty Hands Test Events, where people interoperate with each other looking for holes in the spec,” Douglass explains. “Here, each product had to prove itself against the same set of requirements. If a product had issues during testing, it simply didn’t pass. Every product that did pass documented its code version and model number, so we know exactly what’s been certified.”
Some tests were run individually, others simultaneously. “For example,” says Douglass, “did everyone connect properly to the NMOS registry? If I switch the NMOS registry, does everyone follow? Other tests required connecting to reference IPMX senders and receivers to verify full interoperability.
What’s in the Test Plan
The IPMX Test Plan TR‑10 TP‑1, published on the vsf.tv, defines the scope of certification and includes the following categories:
- General Network Interface Tests
- Media Network‑Specific Tests
- TR‑10 Sender Tests
- TR‑10 Receiver Tests
- NMOS Node Discovery Tests
- Node API and Registration Behavior
- Connection Management
- SDP Transport File and Capabilities vs. NMOS State
- JPEG XS Capabilities and Stream Compatibility
- Optional Capabilities — HKEP and PEP
Raising the Bar for Pro AV
“This is a pretty big thing that will affect the entire Pro AV industry,” Douglass says. He’s referring to the broader impact of IPMX as an open, interoperable standard—one that supports flexibility across hardware and software implementations, can run on cost‑efficient network switches, does not require PTP synchronization, and remains compatible with SMPTE ST 2110.
For an industry long dominated by proprietary AV transport methods, IPMX certification represents a decisive step toward true plug‑and‑play interoperability. And for those who helped architect the process, it’s the culmination of years of work to bring broadcast‑class IP video standards into the mainstream of professional AV.
