Although many vendors have already announced support for the standard, on April 14, the SMPTE formally published the Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF) as SMPTE-2021. The standard is the result of a three-year effort on the part of more than 150 people, representing users, vendors and others from around the world.
BXF standardizes the communication of three basic types of data exchange: schedule and as-run information, content metadata and content movement instructions. And the standard provides many advantages to users including a single method of exchanging data among systems such as program management, traffic, automation and content distribution; support for file- and message-based (dynamic) data exchange; increased integration of related systems; and an extended metadata set for data exchange.
It is expected that systems employing the BXF standard for communications will offer users dramatic workflow benefits, including quantifiable cost savings, and the potential for easy support of new revenue streams. For sales departments, it introduces control over make-goods, and they will no longer have to wait for the daily playlist download, but be able to trim upcoming breaks in real time.
In addition, efforts are currently underway to continue the excellent momentum propelling BXF with an effort to develop a Recommended Practice for BXF deployments and to start assessment of current implementations that would identify possible enhanced features that may be incorporated in the future.
For more information, visit www.smpte.org.
