A common specification for the delivery of programmes to multiple devices will be released by the Advanced Media Workfl ow Association (AMWA) next month.

AS-02, which has been in development since 2007, is designed for use by post-production facilities, broadcasters and distributors that face the challenge of distributing programmes to a variety of platforms.

“A particular episode of a programme may need to be rendered to tens of different versions for linear broadcast, on-demand platforms, use by airlines and so on,” AMWA executive director Brad Gilmer told Broadcast.

“Together with audio tracks and subtitle files, that might result in hundreds or thousands of elements that need to be held together.”

AS-02 will be a specific way of using MXF (Material Exchange Format) with video codec that will support MPEG-2, H.264 and JPEG2000. It will also wrap multiple mono, stereo and surround audio tracks, and carry subtitles.

The application specification is currently undergoing AMWA’s intellectual property rights (IPR) review process. The review closes on 11 November, with ratification of the spec expected to take place at AMWA’s board meeting on 14 November.

A statement from Avid described the spec as “a cornerstone of the future content creation paradigm”.

It said: “With migration of physical to file-based workflows largely complete, the coming phase of media enterprise consolidation will be predicated upon technologies like AS-02.”

Gilmer added: “There is a lot of interest in this from companies facing the challenges of professional media distribution.

“It used to be easy to distribute content when you sent a tape to playout and everyone watched the programme at the same time, but now people watch on myriad devices and the goal is to get content to as many platforms as possible.”