The move is significant because Evertz and Sony have been touting their own approaches towards different aspects of IP-based production; Evertz through its Aspen format, while Sony has been promoting its Network Media Interface.

Meanwhile, Grass Valley, one of the founding members of Aims, has backed Sony’s Network Media Initiative.

Aims’ open standards are based on the roadmap established by SMPTE 2022-6, VSF TR-03 and VSF TR-04.

Evertz said it would work actively within the organisation to help ensure full IP interoperability for content exchange among vendors.

“We are very proud that Aspen has been recognized as an open format when it was published by SMPTE last month,” said Evertz chief executive Romolo Magarelli. “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 standardised will be one of these important standards. Hence, together with Fox, we are happy to join Aims to provide a united message of standards harmonisation to the industry.

“Harmonisation 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 virtualisation and cloud services for processes in the workflow.”

Sony vice president of sales and marketing John Studdert said Sony joining Aims would help standardisation happen more quickly.

“Our opinion was we want to do what is best for our customers – it’s the end users who are driving this.  If you look at some of the things that Aims is trying to achieve, it is in line with our thinking which is open collaboration between manufacturers and end users. It’s picking up speed, and Sony joining will give it a further boost.

“Aspen does a great job for today and it solves an immediate problem. That’s why we opened up NMI to support Aspen natively. Until then we can bridge the gap between what’s going on with Aspen for uncompressed HD delivery that could migrate nicely into whatever TR-03 becomes. It’s a nice bridge and means you can get going right now.”

Evertz said its input into the standardisation efforts within SMPTE would include providing a TR-03/Aspen harmonisation profile.

At NAB it will show products using RFC4175 and AES67 format to highlight the potential of seamless TR-03 and ASPEN interoperability, added Evertz chief technology officer Rakesh Patel.