The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has published an updated version of its reference architecture for Dynamic Media Facilities (DMF) white paper, continuing its work on defining future-ready, software-based production infrastructures for the media industry.
The DMF concept promotes a containerized and layered architecture inspired by IT and cloud models, running on general-purpose compute across on-premise and cloud environments, to enable scalable, vendor-neutral workflows. The EBU, together with the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), also offers a high-performance Media eXchange Layer (MXL) for media transport between functions, developed with a growing list of industry partners and maintained by the Linux Foundation.
What’s new in v2
For one, the updated version provides clearer guidance on orchestration, by explicitly positioning it as a cross-cutting task within the DMF layered architecture diagram: Rather than treating it as an implicit or loosely defined function, orchestration is now formally defined as something that spans multiple layers of the Dynamic Media Facility, interacting with different components across the workflow.
The updated white paper also introduces a clearer distinction between what belongs to orchestration and what sits outside of that scope, reducing ambiguity around responsibilities and boundaries. As a result, the white paper offers a more structured and operationally useful picture of how orchestration functions within a DMF, making it easier to identify how workflow steps are orchestrated and how they should be managed within the overall system.
The product of, and supporting, an industry collaboration at scale
The updated document supports both technology suppliers and media organisations in aligning product development and procurement strategies with the DMF approach.
The DMF project itself is the result of a broad collaboration within the EBU and with partner organisations, including the work on the Media eXchange Layer (MXL) and the broader efforts to enable multi-vendor interoperability. Version 2 of the white paper update reflects input from multiple broadcasters as well as the joint taskforce on DMF (JT-DMF).