Guidelines: MXF Application Specification
Audio-Visual Working Group
The document known as RDD 48 specifies a vendor-neutral subset of the Material Exchange Format (MXF) file format for the long-term archiving and preservation of moving image and other audiovisual content, including all forms of ancillary data, together with associated materials. Among other features, RDD 48 defines a means for the carriage and labeling of multiple timecodes and audio tracks; the handling of captions, subtitles, and Timed Text; a minimal core metadata set; program segmentation metadata; and embedded content integrity data.
The overall RDD has been written broadly, to cover a wide range of audiovisual content. One derivative or secondary related version (referred to by the former Advanced Media Workflow Association or AMWA term shim) is included via a set of constraints specified in annex J. This derivative version is named the RDD 48 Baseband Shim: Single Items from Baseband Video, and it is intended to serve the most critical current needs of many archives: the reformatting of older analog and digital videotapes and, for some organizations, the encoding and packaging of "live" video streams sent to an archive via a serial interface. Additional derivative or secondary related versions may be developed in the future, e.g., for born digital (retain and rewrap essence as acquired), scanned film, and other content types.
Comments are welcome.
Current Version
- December 3, 2018: SMPTE MXF Archive and Preservation Format Registered Disclosure Document (RDD 48) (PDF, 113 pages)
- Errata for RDD 48 (PDF). As of 2025, this document corrects two SMPTE ULs for MICCarriage and MICCarriage value.
- 2022: SMPTE RDD 48:2018 Amendment 1:2022 (PDF, 6 pages) This Amendment to RDD 48:2018 adds mapping of RFC 9043 FFV1 Video Coding Format Versions 0, 1, and 3 to RDD 48 and the MXF Generic Container
Sample Files
Sample files for PAL and NTSC are availabe including for FFV1 in MXF mapping for Amd 1 2022.Document History
This document began as the Application Specification for Archiving and Preservation (ASAP) by FADGI. The AS-07 designation was assigned in 2012 when the specification came under AMWA auspices. Although AMWA had not yet established its Work in Progress (WIP) category, versions of AS-07 have been shared in a WIP manner with the archiving community five times and once as a Proposed Specification with peer review. The 2017 version was published under FADGI sponsorship, again with community peer review and is the last iteration to carry the AS-07 designation. Starting in 2018, the name is changed to Registered Disclosure Document (RDD) 48 and the document is published by SMPTE. Links to all published versions of the document are available below.
Previous Versions
Posted on the FADGI Web site
- September 8, 2017: AS-07: MXF Archive and Preservation Format Application Specification, updated with link to errata list (PDF, 117 pages)
- A list of changes from the 2016 version of the specification is available here.
- A set of graded sample files based on the September 2017 AS-07 Application Specification is available.
- AS07_Manifest XML schema, updated September 14, 2017
- October 2012: MXF Application Specification for Archiving and Preservation, version 1k
- August 2011: MXF Application Specification for Archiving and Preservation, version 1h
- October 2010: MXF Application Specification for Archiving and Preservation, version 1d
Posted at the AMWA Web site:
- June 2016: AS-07 (includes Baseband Shim as table in Appendix J) (114 pages)
- A set of graded sample files based on the June 2016 AS-07 Application Specification is available.
- September 2015: AS-07 (includes Baseband Shim as table in Appendix J) (111 pages)
- September 2014: AS-07 (includes Baseband Shim as table in Appendix J) (89 pages)
BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS
- Items in bold are most useful.
- September 2015: User Needs and MXF Options: Preservation Planning and the AS-07 Specification, (current version) 25 pages.
- September 2014: User Needs and MXF Options: Preservation Planning and the AS-07 Specification, (earlier version) 20 pages.
- January 2013: Working list of generalized user requirements, 3 pages.
- August 2011: Preservation Video File Format Issues and Considerations, 11 pages.
- October 2010: Audio-Visual Format Documentation: Background Paper, 14 pages.
- November 2010: Notes from user-community technical meeting at AMIA/IASA joint conference, 5 pages.
- October 2010: JPEG 2000 profile illustrative sketch, 3 pages.
Last Updated: 4/15/2025