DEVELOPER TOOLS
The AMW Association mission is to develop and advance the use of standards and technology that enable more effective networked media workflows.
The Association has a number of projects in progress. Members of the AMWA work closely with committees at standards bodies like the SMPTE to ensure that work is not duplicated, and that the AMWA specifications are aligned with International standards.
To assist developers the AMWA provides comprehensive documentation on the programming interfaces and data models defined by the AMWA Specifications.
Much of the work on the specifications can be followed in the members-only AMWA Forum. Some of the projects can be found on SourceForge.
Finished specifications are published on this web site.
The AMWA projects use three primary standards:
- AAF, the Advanced Authoring Format (AMWA MS-01)
- MXF - Material Exchange Format (SMPTE 377M-2004)
- BXF - Broadcast Exchange Format (SMPTE S2021-2008)
APPLICATION SPECIFICATIONS
| AMWA ID | Name | Description | Status |
AS-01
 |
AAF Edit Protocol | Edit metadata interchange using AAF. Includes base set of effects. | Published. |
| AS-02
|
MXF Versioning (was MXF Mastering Format) | Storage of MXF program components to enable versions & inventories, for use in a multi-version, multi-lingual, multi-delivery media environment. | Published. |
| AS-03
|
MXF Program Delivery | MXF optimized for program delivery intended for direct playout via a video server for example. This is based on a PBS profile for MXF program delivery. | Published. |
| AS-05
|
AAF Effects Protocol | Extends AS-01 with color, text & opacity effects | Published. |
| AS-10
|
MXF for Production | MXF for end-to-end production workflow | Approved project, document in development |
| AS-11
|
MXF Program Contribution | MXF format for delivery of finished programs at higher bit rates | Published. |
| AS-12
|
Commercial Delivery File Format | MXF format optimized for the delivery of finished commercials to broadcast stations. AS-12 enables the explicit identification of content | Approved concept, Technical work complete, TSC vote starting soon |
INTERFACE SPECIFICATIONS
| AMWA ID | Name | Description | Status |
| IS-01 | AAF toolkit | AAF C++ SDK reference implementation
More information at http://aaf.sourceforge.net/ |
Published. |
| IS-03 | Media Authoring with Java (MAJ) API | AAF Java API
More information at http://majapi.sourceforge.net/ |
Approved, in progress. |
AMWA DEVELOPERS LIBRARY
- AAF SDK API Documentation
- AAF SDK Plugin Programmer's Interface Documentation
- AAF Plugin Specification (PDF, 55k)
- AAF Object Manager Design (PDF, 171k)
- MS-01 AAF Object Manager Documentation
- MS-01 AAF Developers Guide (PDF, 155k)
- AAF FAQ for Programmers is a technical FAQ which offers answers to programming question.
- Null codec implementation and (re)use - Given by Jim Trainor, AAF Developer, at the October 2002 AAF Engineering Meeting, Atlanta (Powerpoint, 245k)
- Patterns in AAF Software - Given by Jim Trainor, AAF Developer, at the 2001 AAF Developers Conference in Barcelona, Spain (PowerPoint, 287k)
- New AAF Examples - Given by Jim Trainor, AAF Developer, at the 2001 AAF Developers Conference in Barcelona, Spain (PowerPoint, 445k)
- The AAF File Format: A Bottom Up Look at AAF Files and the AAF Open Source SDK - Given by Jim Trainor, AAF Developer, at the 2001 AAF Developers Conference in Barcelona, Spain (PowerPoint, 439k)
- The AAF File Format - Given by Jim Trainor, AAF Developer, this is a presentation on AAF for developers from the SMPTE 143rd Technical Conference in New York City (PDF, 47k)
- AAF For Developers - Jim Trainor, AAF Developer (PDF, 217k)
- AAF - Dodo and the Evolution of an interface
- Dodo Reference Manual
- Rebuilding Derived headers on Windows
- How to download Cygwin tools
- AAF and its use of COM
- Performance evaluation for AAF Structured Storage files - Results collated by Phil Tudor, 5 April 2005, version 0.1 (PDF, 127k)
- TN09 - I/O Performance and the AAF Toolkit - April 5, 2004 Tim Bingham (PDF, 30k)
AAF SDK
AAF Run-Time Libraries
The AAF dynamically loadable com library, and plugins, required to run AAF applications.
AAF Developer Libraries
he AAF dynamically loadable com library, static libraries, and header files required to develop applications. Debug versions of the libraries are also included.
AAF SDK Source Code
OMF Developer Libraries
The AAF/OMF converter distributed as part of the AAF SDK source code (Utilities/AafOmf) requires OMF libraries which are no longer distributed with the AAF SDK. Instead, the OMF developers libraries, and header files required to develop applications, may be downloaded from here. The following zip archive contains OMF libraries for the Win32 (using MSVC 6 compiler) or Irix 6.5.x (using MIPSPro 7.3.1. compiler) platforms. To build the AAF/OMF converter, download and unpack the following zip file, and place the resulting OMF directory into the top-level of the AAF SDK source tree (i.e., as a peer of AAFWinSDK or AAFMipsIrixSDK). Then build the AafOmf project as required.
AAF PROGRAMMING EXAMPLES
Download programming examples (745k, tgz)
AAF TUTORIAL
The following files are available in Technical Documents on the AMWA Forum to members only.
- AAF Programmer's Tutorial by Jim Trainor
- AAF Programmer's Tutorial Example Code
- AAF UML Example
PRODUCT REGISTRATION
A site at http://registration.amwa.tv/ is being developed for vendors to register products that comply with AMWA specifications. This site will also host sample files for interoperability tests.