As the industry embraces file-based workflows, numerous stakeholders have identified the need for a specification for an interoperable set of master files and associated metadata, to enable the interchange and automated creation of downstream distribution packages within the motion picture and television production and postproduction industries. This need was already coming into focus at IBC2009. Since then, the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC) aimed to address this by hosting a project that joined industry participants including representatives from studios, content creators and additional ETC members. The group recently published a draft spec of an ‘Interoperable Master Format,’ or IMF, which is now available for industry review.

Industry veteran Howard Lukk, who chairs the IMF technical committee, will present the specification during IBC, as the group seeks input and feedback before it submits a draft spec in order to initiate a formal standards-setting process, most likely this autumn. “Before we can do that, however, we need industry feedback and input on the work that the group has done thus far — and hence the distribution of the draft specification to the group of people in the industry that have expressed interest and on the ETC website,” says ETC CEO and executive director David Wertheimer. “Anyone who has interest in this topic should download the draft specification and provide feedback to the group.”

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