Three media industry trade bodies have announced plans for “unprecedented” collaboration in a bid to drive common standards and increase interoperability among media organisations.

Senior managers from the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), the European Broadcast Union (EBU), and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) have agreed to meet regularly to exchange information and identify areas of cooperation.

The aim is to gather information about workflows and media services which will be shared with members of the organisations and industry leaders.

AMWA Executive Director Brad Gilmer said it makes sense for the organisations to work closely together.

“AMWA is business driven, and we appreciate the user input we receive from the EBU and others – in fact, we cannot achieve our goals without it,” he said. 

“We also value the critical due-process review that SMPTE offers.”

AMWA and EBU also announced plans to formalise their Framework for Interoperable Media (FIMS), which aims to help overcome problems caused by the lack of common interfaces between systems from different vendors.

The output of the Framework for Interoperable Media Service (FIMS) Joint Task Force will be submitted to SMPTE after formalisation by AMWA and EBU.

SMPTE president Pete Ludé said: “This unprecedented cooperative effort is striking because of the critical and unique influence each group has on the processes and tools that are rapidly remaking the digital media ecosystem.

“As more media organisations rely on rapidly developed software-based tools, it is particularly important that standards-development processes meet these fast-paced needs.”

The UK’s cross-broadcaster initiative, the Digital Production Partnership (DPP), is working with the AMWA on a common standard for the file-based delivery of programmes.