MXF: The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

From the mid-nineties until about a month ago, there was really only one truly ubiquitous file format, allowing creatives using disparate applications on different operating systems to share media.  It was called QuickTime.  Remember?
Even though you were on an Avid, and I was on Final Cut, and she was on After Effects on a PC running Windows 3.1, we could get the file over to the other person by exporting a QuickTime.  And yes, it was a pain, and yes, we had to render, but it got the job done.  I could install QuickTime, and the required specialized codecs I needed quite easily, and once I did, the world was my oyster.  Well, at least it was in a moving image digital file type of way.
At this year's NAB, something very pivotal happened, and it was so quiet! Enough major acquistion device manufacturers, post-production tool manufacturers, and even some storage manufacturers got on the bandwagon to give QuickTime a run, and the Material eXchange Format (MXF) was their shining weapon.
What is MXF?  Not a lot really. It's a file format, which is a derivative from the much maligned Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) specification, originally spearheaded by Microsoft, Apple and Avid, among others.  Yes, Apple was part of the AAF committee, until they left it when they realized that QuickTime was not going to be AAF and vice-versa.
MXF compartmentalizes its data into two categories: essence, or data that carries something of importance, like a video or audio stream, or motion vectors, or timecode, and metadata, or the data describing the essence data.  Either kind of data is described with three specific parameters: key, length and value. As such it is quite ubiquitous, and completely open source  (very much like its counterpart, XML), and rather easy to implement it into your device that records, edits or manipulates the data within the file.  There's good online documentation about it.  There's a bubbling online community of developers that lovingly share their information to each other.  It has everything that it needs to unseat QuickTime from its throne.
The final stroke, of course, was adoption, and this year, MXF got that as well.  Do the names Sony, Panasonic, Avid, Grass Valley, and the BBC ring a bell?  They've all signed on and are actually already using MXF as an integral part of their product lines.
So where's Apple in all this?  Well, they are patiently explaining to folks why QuickTime is still the way to go, and here, try this workflow solution that extracts the essence out of MXF files and places it in QuickTime file wrappers.
Want your clips off of a Panasonic P2 card?  Use FCP's Import from P2 option in the file menu.  Want clips off of a XDCAM disc? Here's a utility we wrote with Sony to extract the essence and place in a QuickTime.
But when attendees came up to me at the Panasonic booth at NAB, asking whether FCP could write files back onto P2 cards in MXF format, I had to say "umm, no," and then explain why staying in a ubiquitous file format like QuickTime was the way to go.
Then I stopped myself.
Why couldn't I use MXF as the means by which to transport files from place to place?
As the answers to the above question get fewer and fewer, it's my hope that Apple realizes that MXF is the Zulu army coming over the hill.  This little file format could be the way that they are bunked from their lofty position as the makers of the file that people use to share media.  Methinks that Apple might have this figured out, and hopefully we'll soon see full MXF compatibility in a program like Compressor.

Comments

[matt]

You say, "Sony, Panasonic, Avid, Grass Valley, and the BBC...are actually already using MXF as an integral part of their product lines." What do you mean by integral exactly? Does that mean that these folks are also turning around and investing in the R&D of MXF or are they simply using a cheap open source solution for certain tasks? I'm not arguing the potential quality of MXF, but just curious as to how exactly onboard such major players really are.

[MattGeller]

Panasonic: The future of their acquisition strategy is P2, which uses MXF exclusively as the on-card file format. Currently, 3 of their cameras are using P2/MXF, with many more to come.

Sony: In all current XDCAM and XDCAM HD products, MXF is used as the exclusive file format. Subsequently, all related gear, such as XDCAM "decks" and field editing equipment work with MXF files natively. Lastly, MXF is used as the proxy file format for IP-transfered shot lists from the field to the studio.

Grass Valley: The new Infinity series of "IP-based" cameras use ubiquitous SD cards or a little Zip-like hard drive called the "Rev." MXF, once again, is the exclusive file format for the media, and is used with the field playback/editing "decks."

Quantum: Their new SDLT tape drives use MXF as the file format for the archive of tapes, whether the original file format was MXF or not. This enables users to search the contents of a tape via the MXF metadata, which allows the viewing of thumbnails of video files, for example.

BBC: The "Creative Desktop," which is the BBC's specification for their worldwide pure-digital workflow for all of their creative teams, calls for MXF as the primary file format for acquisition, editing, finishing and storage.

SMPTE: The MXF format was standardized by SMPTE in 2004 (377M - 408M)

The above details express how integral MXF is to these companies. Not all of them were integral to the development of the standard, but now that the standard is, well, standardized, there's not much more R&D to do other than understand how to access the other guy's essences and metadata.

The point I'm making is that with very little marketing effort, and in fact just using the atmosphere in the industry right now, QuickTime can start to be perceived as a proprietary file format in very short order.

As has happened many times before, Apple's foresight into creating workflows that use ubiquitous exchange formats (look at how early and quickly they embraced MPEG-4, AAC & H.264, among others) is actually incenting competing manufacturers to do the same. MXF is gaining such ground, in my opinion, because it simply isn't QuickTime and can do many (but not nearly all) of the things that QuickTime can do.

[Eric Bocaneanu]

It seems that Apple is ready to get on the bandwagen of MXF, finally. It is using technology from MOG Solutions (of theScribe fame) for their own solution for OSX. Interestingly, MOG curently has software only for PC.

http://www.mog-solutions.com/catalogo_noticias.php?ID=56

[brendani]

Something not mentioned in this analysis is that, while a lot of major players are jumping on the MXF bandwagon, they are all only doing so with regard to the STORAGE side of the equation. You don't see any of those companies talking about natively editing MXF files, using them during production or for any other use except to store data and metadata.

Once After Effects, Final Cut Pro and other commonly used post-production apps can handle MXF files natively, then you will see Quicktime in a "defensive" posture. Until that time, you still have to convert the MXF to Quicktime in order to even use the files.

[john Vutech]

having a hard time converting some solitary avid mxf files to quicktime can't even get them to ingest in avid express pro
they are hd codec any clues?

what does one do with non native p2 mfx
are there converision apps>that are affordable

thanks

john

[Mike]

FYI there is third party software out there that will let you edit in FCP from your P2 or server without having to crunch back and forth. It's by Softron called mxf converter. I haven't used it because it doesn't translate 377m to QT. Anyone know of anything that will?
thanks
Mike

[mister t]

check this hot stuff:

http://mxf4mac.com/products/mfx4qt/

[Maria]

I've been handed a hard disk full of MXF files and I can't open them at all. Any suggestions for free or affordable conversion tools that'll work on a Mac? Ideally, I'd like to convert them to low res (480x270) QuickTime for logging.

[Chris Vermaak]

http://mxf4mac.com/products/mfx4qt/

Seems to be a interesting solution to MXF files not opening directly in FCP from vendors like Omneon however I think Apple has to wake up and smell the coffee and unify MXF as a compatible container for its products, including QuickTime.

Damn betamax and VHS again only the container is virtual in this case.
Chris