Editing Material Exchange Format (section)

== Usage ==
From 2004 onwards, MXF was in the process of evolving from standard to deployment. The breadth of the standard was subject to lead to interoperability problems, as vendors implement different parts of the standard or interpret misleading parts of the standard differently.

MXF is fairly effective at the interchange of [[SMPTE D10|D10]] (IMX) material, mainly because of the success of the Sony eVTR and Sony's eVTR RDD to SMPTE. Workflows combining the eVTR, Avid NLE systems, and broadcast servers using MXF in coordination with [[Advanced Authoring Format|AAF]] are now possible.

Long-[[Group of pictures|GOP]] [[MPEG-2]] material interchange between video servers is possible, as broadcasters develop application specifications they expect their vendors to implement.

As of autumn 2005, there were major interoperability problems with MXF in broadcast [[post-production]] use. The two data-recording camera systems which produced MXF at that time, [[Sony]]'s [[XDCAM]] and Panasonic's [[P2 (storage media)|DVCPRO P2]], produced mutually incompatible files due to opaque sub-format options obscured behind the MXF file extension. Without advanced tools, it was impossible to distinguish these incompatible formats.

Some of the incompatibilities were addressed and ratified in the 2009 version of the standard.<ref>{{cite web
 |url=http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreview/trev_2010-Q3_MXF-1.pdf
 |author=Pedro Ferreira
 |title=MXF – a progress report (2010)
 |date=23 July 2010
}}</ref>

MXF is used as the audio and video packaging format for [[Digital Cinema Package]] (DCP). It is also used in the [[STANAG]] specification documents.<ref name="stanag-spec">{{cite web |title=STANAG 4609 Edition 2 |url=http://www.nato.int/structur/AC/224/standard/4609/4609_documents/STANAG_4609_Ed2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110013520/https://www.nato.int/structur/AC/224/standard/4609/4609_documents/STANAG_4609_Ed2.pdf |archive-date=2010-11-10 |access-date=2010-08-18}}</ref>

The file extension for MXF files is ".mxf".  The Macintosh File Type Code registered with Apple for MXF files is "mxf ", including a trailing space.