SMPTE UK Section Joins With Mesclado to Offer One-Day Course

The United Kingdom (UK) Section of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), has announced that it is partnering with Mesclado, a European leader in media workflows and education, to deliver a one-day course on Interoperable Master Format (IMF).

Scheduled for Wednesday, 08 July, at the British Film Institute (BFI) located at 21 Stephen Street in London.

"IMF: The New Universal Master" will give technical and nontechnical staff within the motion-imaging industry an opportunity to take the lead in understanding IMF and how this SMPTE standard works across all areas of the industry.

Peter Weitzel, SMPTE membership director and secretary/treasurer of the SMPTE UK Section, said: "IMF is one example of an industrywide standard created within SMPTE, and this course from the SMPTE UK Section brings experts together to educate SMPTE Members and others in the UK's thriving post community about how IMF can assist organisations to be more efficient, creative, and productive.

"IMF is a standard that fosters new ways of thinking about media workflows, and it will have a profound effect across the post industry."

Intended for professional applications worldwide, IMF is a file-based framework designed to represent high-quality versions of a given, finished multimedia work destined for distribution across multiple channels, including broadcast and internet. Consultant Ken Burrows will join François Abbe of Mesclado to examine and explain this framework and standard during "IMF: The New Universal Master."

Burrows is a technology consultant in the digital media, production, broadcast, and distribution sectors who previously served as chief technology officer (CTO) for broadcast and distribution at Channel 4. In addition to being a founding member of the UK Digital Production Partnership (DPP), Burrows served as the organisation's technical lead responsible for the conception and implementation of the common file-based AS-11: Material eXchange Format (MXF) DPP standard for programme delivery to UK broadcasters.

Abbe is Mesclado's founder and president, and he has built his reputation as a respected media expert through 20 years in the broadcast industry, with experience in research and development, product management, and solution architecture. He was instrumental in the conception of MPEG-2 coding for digital terrestrial television (DTT), high-definition (HD) MXF, IMF, objective image quality control, and HD within a data processing and file-based environment.

Together, Burrows and Abbe will provide course participants with the comprehensive background knowledge to appreciate the real benefits of IMF and provide an overview of the business advantages gained when using IMF for business-to-business ready-to-air media exchange. The two experts also will present a panorama of existing IMF solutions, including real-world examples and use cases, and future developments planned for the standard and its implementation. To ensure that each participant's issues or questions can be dealt with during the course, Burrows and Abbe also will devote time to small-group discussions. There will also be demonstrations of IMF workflows from Rohde and Schwarz, who are supporting this course.

IMF: The New Universal Master is ideal for technical directors, engineers, project managers, decision-makers, and chiefs of project marketing; familiarity with broadcast workflow and information technology (IT) is recommended. Information on registration is available at http://www.smpte.org/uk-imf. The SMPTE UK Section course is £450 plus VAT for nonmembers, £360 plus VAT for SMPTE members, and £380 plus VAT for those employed by a UK Screen Association member.

smpte.org/uk
mesclado.com