Fox Networks Group and Evertz have joined the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) to help foster the adoption of common standards for delivery and distribution of video, audio, and metadata over IP. Fox and Evertz have pledged to support the initiative undertaken by the Video Services Forum (VSF) on TR-03 aimed at standardizing the transport of media through identifying a common interface and protocol to be adopted by all equipment vendors. Recognizing the rapid adoption of IP as the emerging broadcast platform of choice, Fox and Evertz will actively work within AIMS to help insure full IP interoperability for content exchange among vendors and will actively assist in achieving this goal. The companies have joined AIMS with the intent of achieving industry-wide harmonization and rapid evolution towards full IP interoperability.

“Fox is pleased to support this effort to achieve industry-wide open standards based on VSF TR-03. Fox continues to recognize the value of IP transport through our successful applications of the widely deployed ASPEN format, SMPTE RDD37, within our facility and for our high profile Fox Sports remote broadcasts. Fox and Evertz joining AIMS advances a unified an open industry standard. We look forward to ratification by SMPTE,” says Richard Friedel, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Fox Networks Engineering and Operations and President of the Video Services Forum.

“As the leader and pioneer of the industry's move to an IP-based infrastructure, we have witnessed firsthand the accelerated deployment of our technology to leading global media corporations. We are very proud that ASPEN has been recognized as an open format when it was published by SMPTE last month. ASPEN was developed as a result of customer needs well before any suitable standard was available. I hope we will see a standard emerge from SMPTE in the near future. In the meantime, we will continue to see the growth of ASPEN based infrastructures as customers move ahead with their expansion plans knowing Evertz will be there to support the harmonized format. Evertz has supported and participated in the efforts of both Video Services Forum (VSF) and SMPTE and we value the work that these organizations bring to our industry. Evertz has always maintained that we will support any important standard or format that allows our customers to expand, execute and compete! We believe that TR-03 will be a framework that once standardized will be one of these important standards. Hence, together with Fox, we are happy to join AIMS to provide a united message of standards harmonization to the industry," said Romolo Magarelli, CEO of Evertz.

Harmonization is the first step in having a standard that encompasses the values of TR-03, TR-04 and ASPEN. The next steps will be to ensure the standard can be implemented in the ever changing business environments broadcasters and media companies operate in. This includes the adoption of virtualization and cloud services for processes in the workflow.

"Evertz continues to provide important input to the standardization efforts within SMPTE by providing a TR-03/ASPEN harmonization profile. This will ensure TR-03 format benefits from the years of experience and knowledge gained from our 50 at-scale IP deployments including Fox. We look forward to contributing to the process of standardization within VSF/SMPTE to meet the needs of all aspects of the broadcast chain, including the next generation facilities that implement virtualization and cloud services. In fact, to reinforce this, we are demonstrating several products at NAB this year using RFC4175 and AES67 format to highlight the potential of seamless TR-03 and ASPEN interoperability,” says Rakesh Patel, CTO of Evertz.

“A move to IP enables a paradigm shift for Fox as we aim to transition from discrete video/audio processing modules to a facility where these processing modules can be virtualized and reside in private or public clouds. These dynamic processes can be spun up or down to create efficient, agile, and most importantly, cost-effective workflows. This is the evolution Fox envisions for our broadcast facilities going forward, ” said Ira Goldstone, Executive Engineer, Fox Networks Engineering and Operations.