The Common Media Application Format was developed by ISO/IEC SC 29 WG 11 (MPEG) to overcome the fragmented media streaming landscape at the time. In the 2010s, service providers needed to encode and package their content several times, for different devices and streaming protocols, e.g. Apple's HLS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, or MPEG-DASH. CMAF defines a unified container, segmented mp4 files, as well as standardized coding constraints on the packaged media codecs (AVC, HEVC, xHE-AAC, MPEG-H Audio, ...). Additional constraints on the container make CMAF suitable for switching, splicing, adaptive streaming etc. These files can then be streamed using any of the above streaming protocols, without the need to re-encode and re-package the content. This significantly reduces operating costs for streaming services (CDN, etc.), simplifies workflows and increases compatibility across devices in general. Today companies like Netflix, Disney+, or Hulu, among many others, have adopted CMAF into their production and distribution workflow.

Fraunhofer IIS has been part of the CMAF standardization since day one. As co-editor of the first editions of CMAF, we provided all media profiles for legacy AAC, xHE-AAC, and MPEG-H Audio, making sure that all MPEG Audio codecs are well fitted for adaptive streaming services that are based on CMAF. This work required close coordination among the experts, over the course of several MPEG meetings in many different countries, with lively discussions well into the night, until consensus could be reached.

During the award ceremony on December 4th in New York City, Ingo Hofmann, head of the Multimedia Transport Group at Fraunhofer IIS, was awarded the Emmy on behalf of the whole team at AME that contributed to the effort.

MPEG has previously received six Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) – in several of these developments, Fraunhofer played a crucial role and is continuously helping to shape the technical foundations of modern streaming and broadcasting worldwide.

For more information, please have a look at the MPEG press releases

In September, the moving image experts at Fraunhofer IIS already received the EMMY® Award for Engineering, Science and Technology from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) for the development and implementation of the JPEG XS video codec. This pioneering standard for professional video production enables the transmission of virtually lossless video over standard Internet Protocol for a wide range of applications in media and studio technology and also allows real-time video processing, for example in cloud data centers.

So this year, both a so-called Daytime Emmy and a so-called Primetime Emmy went to Franconia.