10 YOUR TAKE Adopting IMF
IMF is the preferred delivery format for Netflix and has advantages when it comes to digital content delivery. But it needs to be easier to use if it’s going to get adopted universally GETTING FRIENDLY WITH IMF
he Interoperable Master Format isn’t new. It’s been around for more than six years. Despite this longevity, broad adoption since
it was established with the publication of SMPTE 2067 has been pretty slow. This may be due more to the age-old mantra ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, than any problems around the standard. It was movie producers who blazed a trail in using IMF for original content delivery, perhaps because those early adopters didn’t have any significant tape-based infrastructure that had been modified for file-based working when receiving content – unlike the TV industry. Many of those big, longer-established content distributors have had the ample resources needed to create the vast array of versions required to address the ‘versioning problem’ – getting a piece of content to look just as good on the back of an aeroplane seat headrest or an iPhone in the back of the car, as on the family TV set. Over time, these resources have been diminishing and many organisations recognise that they have to adopt workflow automation to survive. The potential for IMF to facilitate automation, while also addressing this versioning problem within almost any
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