Grass Valley and Lawo collaborate on open media facility interoperability

This collaboration signals a shift away from closed vendor ecosystems toward standardized, software-defined architectures. By validating the EBU’s DMF and MXL principles, two market leaders are providing a blueprint for broadcasters to scale hybrid workflows without being tethered to a single hardware provider. In an era of rapid migration to the cloud, this reduced integration burden is critical for maintaining operational agility and protecting infrastructure investments. Industry observers should watch for the first live deployment of this integrated stack at a major sporting event as a proof of performance under load.

The collaboration arrives as the broadcast industry increasingly prioritizes vendor-neutral, software-defined infrastructure. Per NewscastStudio in June 2026, the broadcast industry is shifting toward 'pluggable ecosystems' where open APIs replace legacy black-box systems to avoid the high costs of vendor lock-in. This trend is mirrored in the adoption of SMPTE ST 2110, which according to Haivision's March 2026 report, has reached 30% penetration among broadcasters as they seek to move beyond the physical constraints of SDI.

At the center of this shift is the Media eXchange Layer (MXL), an open-source project hosted by the Linux Foundation. Unlike traditional standards that emerge from years of committee consensus, MXL is a 'code-first' initiative designed as a high-performance transport layer for media functions running in containerized environments. According to TVBEurope in July 2025, MXL effectively acts as the 'virtualized cabling' for the EBU’s Dynamic Media Facility, allowing video and audio to move between software modules with minimal CPU overhead.

Deployment of these open frameworks is gaining momentum among Tier-1 broadcasters. Per SVG Europe in December 2025, the EBU’s DMF and MXL are viewed as the architectural glue for the next generation of sports production. This sentiment is reinforced by the publication of version 2 of the DMF reference architecture in April 2026, which explicitly defined orchestration as a cross-cutting function needed to coordinate complex, multi-site workflows. As major events like the 2026 Winter Olympics approach, the industry is closely monitoring how these interoperable software stacks handle real-time, high-bitrate media exchange at scale.