[!WARNING] The Online MXF Inspection Tool is no longer available

See below for more details

Overview of AS-11 Specifications

For an overview of AMWA AS-11 Specifications refer to the AS-11 page on the AMWA website

Explaining the new AS-11 Specifications

• YouTube: Watch this AMWA AS-11 Webinar from 13 May 2016: "Introducing the New Rules-Based Specifications"
• Read this BBC R&D Blog Post: "Advancing File Based Delivery: UHD, North America & Beyond"
• Introduction to the new Rules-based approach (download)
• Technical Overview of the AS-11 family of Specifications (download)
• [Advanced / In depth] Read this BBC R&D White Paper on "Rules-Based Specifications: Modelling and Processing"

AS-11 Specification Issues

See the Issue Tracker – this covers all AS-11 Specifications.

Sample MXF Files

Sample files that exemplify the AS-11 Rules-based Specifications:

• AS-11 UK DPP SD and HD
• AS-11 X1
• AS-11 X2
• AS-11 X7
• AS-11 X8

Some other AMWA AS-11 Rules-based Specifications have a lot in common with AS-11 X1 & AS-11 X2, so these files might be of use to developers working with, for instance, AS-11 X3 or AS-11 X4 or AS-11 X9.

Online MXF Inspection Tool

An experimental online tool was made available which instantly converted all the Header Metadata details in an MXF file to XML with a "friendly" AS-11 view. The tool was hosted at https://as11.virt.ch.bbc.co.uk/ and was decommissioned in October 2025 (that URL now redirects to this page).

Alternative tools:

• A similar web tool is available on the SMPTE Metadata Registers website. This version does not have a "friendly" metadata view for AS-11 files.
• Download the latest release of bmx and use the mxf2raw application. For example, in a Command Prompt or Terminal run mxf2raw --as11 my_as11_file.mxf
• MediaInfo is an open source tool that can extract AS-11 metadata and can be downloaded or run in the browser
• Many other tools (including commercial media player and editing tools) can extract AS-11 metadata

MXF Read / Write Implementation

The bmx library and some of its tools have been updated to support the AS-11 Rules-based Specifications. Refer to this for an example implementation as well as tools for reading and writing AS-11 MXF files.

Getting in touch

If you discover a technical issue with an AS-11 Specification or this wiki please add an Issue.