AMW Association (formerly AAF Association)

News Flash - Advanced Authoring Format in action at NAB2001(AAF)

New developments and new partnerships for the AAF

Las Vegas, Nev. (April 11, 2024) - NAB 2001 sees a range of new developments and partnerships that will promote widespread adoption of AAF technology.

Version 1.00 released and Implemented

The AAF Association has reached a major milestone with the release of the AAF Software Development Kit (SDK) Version 1.0 at NAB 2001. The Advanced Authoring Format provides technology to aid in the interchange of video, audio and metadata in the post-production environment.Version 1.0 of the AAF SDK is a reference implementation of the AAF interchange specification. This software, which is available from the AAF Association free of charge and is licensed under Open Source, provides a critical tool in establishing a metadata pathway throughout the post-production process. Avid, the BBC, Sony and Quantel will all be showing AAF technology at NAB.

AAF goes Open Source

Following the release and implementation of Version 1.00 of the AAF SDK , the AAF board have ratified the use of Source Forge Open Source technology, which allows direct access to AAF code for developers. This means that AAF is released under the same licensing model as Linux and other Open Source technologies.

Oliver Morgan, Senior Consulting Engineer at Avid states, "This long-awaited release is a first for the television industry. It is significant not only because it publishes a substantial body of software for the benefit of the entire user community, but also because a strong and growing independent organization already exists, dedicated to the support and further development of the standard."

AAF Executive Director, Brad Gilmer adds "The AAF Public Source License is good for the industry because it combines the principles of the Open Source Movement with valuable safeguards to ensure that end users can depend on the quality and interoperability of AAF-compliant products. A number of people on the AAF Development Team contributed to this major release, and they have our warmest thanks and praise for their accomplishment."

AAF Supports all Compression Formats

AAF technology is compression agnostic. In addition to supporting uncompressed, it supports DV, MPEG2 in all its variants, MJPEG, Broadcast Wav and others. Furthermore, AAF files can contain different essence types simultaneously. For example, a single AAF file could contain DV25, MPEG 4:2:2 MPML, uncompressed, and WAV.

AAF Association working together with Pro-MPEG

The Pro-MPEG Forum and Advanced Authoring Format Association have joined forces at NAB 2001 to stage an interoperability demonstration, that shows the practical results of the huge amount of work that has gone into their development of AAF and MXF file formats set to become a core element of the new infrastructures at the heart of digital TV and digital production facilities.

The AAF Association created the Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) as an open standard for multimedia authoring and post production. It enables content creators to easily exchange digital media and metadata across platforms and between applications.

The Pro-MPEG Forum created the Material Exchange Format (MXF), which is derived from the AAF data model and is a simple interchange format intended to facilitate the transfer of finished content, whether whole programs or completed sections, between servers and to tape streamers.

The AAF and MXF formats are complementary - and while AAF integrates closely with and complements existing media file formats, MXF complements existing stream formats as well as handling AAF files.

"AAF and MXF in partnership provide a unified solution for file exchange in production, playout and distribution - these formats will be very important building blocks in future TV production architectures" says Dr Nick Wells, chairman of the Pro-MPEG Forum.

Changes in Membership at AAF

Fox, already an AAF member has assumed a position on the AAF Board of Directors. The AAF Association has elected Michael Brinkman from Panasonic as Treasurer. Ascential Software, formerly Informix has just joined the AAF Association, this on the heels of Grass Valley Group and Pandora bringing the association to over thirty members. Andy Setos, Executive Vice President of Fox News Technology Group says, "The Fox Group· seeks to produce content using the latest technology and techniques·" "We feel that a common media file format, both for storage, transmission and archiving is highly desirable·". "AAF and MXF hold the promise of a common file interchange format·"

About the AAF

The Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) is a multimedia file format that enables content creators to easily exchange digital media and metadata across platforms and between applications. The AAF simplifies project management, saves time, and preserves valuable metadata that was often lost when transferring media between applications in the past.

AAF is forwards compatible with OMFI, which was developed in the mid 1990s by Avid. AAF adds new capabilities for compression and effects descriptions and standardized metadata.

About the AAF Association Inc.

Incorporated in January 2000, the AAF Association Inc. is a broadly-based trade association intended to promote the development and adoption of AAF technology throughout the media industry. With representatives from many major players in the industry, both on the users and manufacturing sides, the AAF Association helps deliver the full benefits of digital media to content creators including film, television, and post-production professionals.

The AAF Association holds regular conferences to guide the development of the specification and the reference software implementation. All developers, whether independent or industry corporate, are invited to our second Developers Conference to be held in Montreal at the end of May.

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