As the broadcast industry moves further into the IP/cloud and software-based environment, the need for interoperability and scalability has increased. In response, many vendors are coalescing around the Media eXchange Layer, (aka MXL) to solve such issues and give customers more flexible solutions.
This was the topic of discussion for TV Tech’s most recent webinar, "MXL in Action: Real-World Interoperability for the Software-Defined Era," the second part of a two part series produced in conjunction for TV Tech sister brand TVBEurope (Click here for Part 1).
Launched by the EBU, the North American Broadcasters Association and the Linux Foundation, MXL is an open-sourced initiative designed to work within the IP environment to allow software-defined processes from competing vendors to work together, allowing broadcasters to choose best of breed applications.
It uses shared compute memory to enable the processing of video and audio streams to enable faster and more efficient transport within a live production. This “Open Source Initiative,” part of the EBU’s Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) architecture and implemented via an SDK, is currently in the candidate stage, but development of an SDK is moving quickly.
Broadcasters that have taken the lead on the project include CBC-Radio Canada, BBC and France TV.
TV Globo
The webinar started off with a keynote from Helio Eufrauzino, media solution specialist at TV Globo, who discussed how Brazil’s largest broadcaster is approaching the type of software-defined production MXL promotes.
Although MXL is not yet fully developed, Eufrazino explained how TV Globo ran a proof of concept (PoC) in AWS at the broadcaster’s hub in São Paulo, using SRT to move signals to and from the cloud and an asynchronous media framework inside the cloud with multiple vendors’ tools.
The PoC evaluated visual quality with no stuttering or artifacts; objective quality metrics—with PSNR and other measurements comparable to traditional studio production; and latency, which remained consistent and low within the cloud media fabric, even during live switching.
The results showed that asynchronous media frameworks—similar in concept to MXL—can reliably distribute live media inside the cloud with quality and latency comparable to hardware-based workflows. However, more work still needs to be done on designing cloud-native applications, containerization and orchestration, improved security and the development of operational and support models customized to software systems, he said.
The best result, Eufrazino stresses, should be a hybrid ecosystem where hardware-centric and software-centric production coexists.
Eufrazino said that the results were promising enough for further research with plans to go live soon.
“At the end of the year, we hope to have a prototype capable of covering a live production, maybe a news program, soccer game, something that we can have to prove that we can cover a certain time and type of event,” he said.
Bringing Broadcasting into Compute
During the panel discussion, Adam Marshall, chief product officer with Grass Valley, explained how MXL will allow live production to operate in a more compute-centric environment.
“As we move into a more software-defined world, having multiple applications from multiple vendors all running on the same same block of compute—especially if we had to use those linear standards—is just not sufficient," he said. “It adds encapsulation delay, it doesn't work in a way that computers work.”
Marshall added the importance and effectiveness of developing MXL as an open source protocol and pointing to GV AMPP as the company’s approach to visual computing.
Interoperability promotes a ‘rising tide that lifts all boats.’
Mike Cronk, TVU Networks
“MXL is effectively the evolution, or the next step, of what we have in our memory share technology with frame cache,” he said, adding that “we're working together collaboratively with other vendors on co-developing that as an open SDK, so that it makes interop much easier between vendors, and ultimately makes it easier for customers.”
Mike Cronk, vice president of strategy for TVU Networks said the company has been doing shared, memory-efficient transfer of uncompressed video between computers for about a decade, using Linux tmpfs, (a type of technology that's fairly standard in the IT industry), but says he’s optimistic about the prospects MXL could promise.
“The exciting thing about MXL and the Open Source Initiative is everybody's going to have a common way of doing it,” he said. “Interoperability promotes a ‘rising tide that lifts all boats.’ And you get the benefits of compute efficiency.”
Cronk added that MXL brings media production architectures more in line with how computers traditionally work.
“When you think about software-based live production, you're paying for the software, but how many compute cores do you need?” Cronk mused. “How much storage do you need? That's where the price tag goes up, and because it [MXL] is so much more efficient than doing all this effectively needless work in terms of packetizing the bits that MXL is really going back to the first principles of video and computers and how they work together.”
We're really interested in making sure that we've got a solid foundation MXL-wise to build not only tomorrow's workflows, but literally the ones that we're already operating today.
Russell Trafford-Jones, Techex
Russell Trafford Jones, industry engagement manager at Techex, commented on how current workflows will become more efficient under MXL.
“Time and time again, we're seeing people making compromises, and they don't want to make those compromises, but fundamentally, there are some times when you have to do that,” he said. “One of those is the lack of MXL, so for us, we're really interested in making sure that we've got a solid foundation MXL-wise to build not only tomorrow's workflows, but literally the ones that we're already operating today, using other technologies, pushing things together.”
Drew Martin, head of video product management for Riedel Communications, sees MXL as the next step in bringing more leverage for operations relying on COTS servers.
“After going IP, people started using COTS servers, and they wanted to get more efficiency out of them,” he said. “So having vendors work together to make an SDK and on a standard so that other people can integrate with it without having to go through all the hoops and jumps that you have to do when it comes down to other protocols… I think it's very important for Reidel to be a part of this and for our future products to be handling it natively.”
Moving Forward
Marshall commented on how fast the process has moved from what was initially discussed during the 2024 IBC Show to where it is now.
“The CBC Radio Canada team was instigating the discussion, saying ‘look, guys, let's get together on this,’” he said. “It took just over 12-13 months, effectively, to where a release candidate was announced on Christmas day [2025]. And the really amazing thing there was, it actually worked the first time. There wasn't a long drawn out process.”
The cost savings realized by MXL could be significant, Cronk adds.
“People want to provide more content to generate more revenue and do it more efficiently, and there's cost precedence, with rights deals going up and up and those types of things,” he said.
Cronk described the current ability for broadcasters using software and elastic compute as “a mess” and pointed to research TVU had done on the potential for savings. “We did a study… a 20-camera soccer match with standard pricing on AWS EC2 [Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud], for 90 minutes. It was less than $15, which is just mind boggling.”
Cronk stressed though, that the same standards that have driven broadcasters for decades still apply.
“So there's this tremendous, potential economic promise, but you have to have the right quality, you have to have the right latency.”
With MXL allowing broadcasters to pick and choose which applications they want to use and when to use them, Martin says this will help lower costs as well.
“Allowing us to have the ‘best of breed,’ hopefully running on the same VM or interconnected and not having to use all the compute to compress, decompress, encapsulate, decapsulate, and being able to do that will one make cloud productions much more feasible when it comes down to pricing,” he said.
Trafford-Jones likes the idea of an a la carte economic model.
“Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to have a feature, but you need that, right? So maybe you need to plug in the gaps, or you're able to then flexibly say, ‘well, this part of my workflow is working well, but I heard that this one's going to be better. It's got a better flexibility of a pricing model,” he said.
Eufrazino says one of the biggest challenges facing the adoption of MXL is getting more participation.
“We need to have more vendors involved, because to have the best solution for each part—the best solution for the production switcher, the best solution for the audio—the best approach is the multivendor scenario.”
Both webinars are now available on demand:
MXL Architecture and Its Capabilities: Unlocking the Future of Live Production
MXL in Action: Real-World Interoperability for the Software-Defined Era
