With the help of the Entertainment Technology Center, studios are engineering an interoperable digital master format (IMF) to further boost their digital businesses. Studios would seriously simplify — and save money on — the distribution process with one movie file, instead of 250, that could be delivered to fit most digital retailers.
Based at the U. of Southern California, the ETC has been overseeing regular studio meetings toward this IMF goal. The ETC expects to create a master specification by early 2010, having already completed more than half the work by September.
“We have an outline for all the necessary components required to make the IMF work,” says David Wertheimer, ETC executive director. “We are all pleased with the progress. Everyone wants more efficiency in the system. This will definitely take what is now a highly people-intensive, manual process into something that is automatic, predictable and reliable. Studios want to make it easier to get content out as broadly as possible to as many companies that provide digital entertainment.”
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