The global society of media professionals, technologists, and
engineers working in the digital entertainment industry (SMPTE), and
the Open Services Alliance (OSA, a member-supported organisation focused on
improving interoperability among microservice-based media systems, have come
together to create the first two microservices standards for the broadcast and
media industry.
The two organisations have published a new public Committee
Draft (public CD) (SMPTE ST 2125) that documents a standardised IMF
Registration API and a second public CD (SMPTE ST 2126) that standardises
status reporting and logging for media microservices.
Both SMPTE ST 2125 and SMPTE ST 2126 are available for download
free of charge to implementers who would like to build initial implementations.
And as public CD document types, they are available for public review and
feedback.
Recognising the value of the Interoperable Mastering Format
(IMF) in bringing efficiencies to content distribution, both SMPTE and OSA
began started work on a standardised IMF Registration API about six months ago.
"A focused project group agreed on an approach and quickly
produced a document to SMPTE, who then continued the rapid pace of getting a
draft into the hands of implementers," said Chris Lennon, OSA founder and
executive director and CEO of MediAnswers.
"Utilising SMPTE's new public Committee Draft (CD) process,
the contribution from the OSA underwent a thorough but accelerated review by
SMPTE's Media Microservices Drafting Group, reporting to the 34CS Technology
Committee, which is focused on media systems, control, and services. We expect
this to be the first of many opportunities for collaboration," he said.
"The balance of rigor and speed of the public CD process to
push solutions out to implementers is invigorating," added Bruce Devlin,
SMPTE standards Vice President and MXF founder. "I understand this to be
the core reason the OSA identified SMPTE and our public CD process for bringing
uniformity and interoperability to service-oriented software architecture. Our
software-minded colleagues tell me that the public CD process fits well with
the agile, iterative way they're accustomed to working."