Conference Preview
AAF Toolkit ready for implementation
by Nick Radlo
IBC Daily - Saturday, 10 September 2023 - The Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) has now moved firmly into the implementation phase, and the AAF Association has a special session on its stand today, for broadcasters, facilities, vendors and the press, to show demonstrations of the most recent additions to the AAF Toolkit - which include the AAF Edit Protocol, new compliance and testing tools, and a preview of AAF version 1.2 with enhanced MXF support.
Broadcast users, such as Gordon Castle, senior VP for technology at CNN, will explain how AAF is set to form an integral part of their new generation networked production systems. Users and equipment suppliers are now implementing AAF as a core element in enabling the use of rich metadata across platforms in the new digital file- based and networked production installations that represent the future of the audiovisual and broadcast industries.
With the full implementation in its open source SDK toolkit of the AAF Edit Protocol, and MXF read and write ability now fully implemented in the AAF Toolkit, AAF is now ready to implement as a bridge between different editing systems.
"We're already seeing evidence of the impact AAF can have on streamlining production workflows, and it's a pleasure for us to see users reaping the benefits from implementing AAF that were predicted right from the start of our work," said Brad Gilmer, executive director of the AAF Association.
The AAF Association's own stand features a number of demonstrations of the latest developments involving AAF, and elsewhere at IBC there will be demonstrations of AAF implementation by Avid Technology, Quantel, DiskStream, Adobe Systems and Automatic Duck.
Quantel has implemented AAF across its iQ and eQ range of editing products, and has now added the AAF Edit Protocol to its systems.
"It's a big jump forward. With the AAF edit protocol you get really useful information on what the offline editor was trying to achieve, not just the numbers on the screen of an old style EDL. Now, you know exactly what's been happening in the edit, and the why, when and where of it," said Quantel marketing manager, Mark Horton.
The AAF Association shares a stand with Metaglue, a leader in the implementation of metadata in broadcasting. Its founder and president Oliver Morgan, who also served on the seminal EBU/SMPTE Taskforce on digital harmonisation, believes broadcasters are now convinced of the value of moving to metadata enabled systems, for which MXF and AAF are key components.
"It's clear that this year many customers are implementing real projects that require putting their own metadata into MXF and AAF files. We're one step closer to seeing the workflow efficiency benefits promised by metadata enabled file formats," he said.
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