MPEG Systems earns Emmy for CMAF’s pivotal role in streaming interoperability
The MPEG Systems Working Group received a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for the standardization of CMAF (Common Media Application Format). This award recognizes CMAF's significant role in unifying fragmented media formats, enabling interoperable internet video distribution across diverse devices. The standard, ISO/IEC 23000-19, is celebrated for eliminating market fragmentation in HTTP-based streaming.
Key Takeaways
- CMAF (ISO/IEC 23000-19) allows a single container to be compatible with both HLS and MPEG-DASH distribution workflows.
- The 76th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Award marks MPEG Systems' sixth Emmy overall and the group's first for CMAF.
- Development participants included major industry stakeholders Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Samsung, and Akamai Technologies.
- The standard utilizes fragmented media objects based on ISOBMFF to enable adaptive bitrate streaming, live broadcasting, and downloads.
Why It Matters
CMAF remains the technical foundation for reducing operational costs and latency in high-stakes video delivery. By enabling a single set of encoded files to reach almost every internet-connected device, it eliminates the need to store separate video copies for Apple and non-Apple ecosystems, nearly halving storage and caching requirements. For the industry, this award confirms that collaborative standardization is the primary defense against market fragmentation. As platforms shift toward low-latency live sports, watch for the continued adoption of CMAF-CTE (Chunked Transfer Encoding) as the baseline for sub-second delivery parity between DASH and HLS clients.
Additional Context
The recognition for the Common Media Application Format (CMAF) coincides with a broader industry push toward operational efficiency and lower delivery costs. Per Bitmovin’s 9th Annual Video Developer Report (September 2025), cost optimization and playback on diverse devices remain the top challenges for video engineers, with 61% of developers still relying on HLS and 46% on MPEG-DASH for distribution. CMAF serves as the critical bridge between these two dominant formats, especially as media companies look to reduce the CDN and storage overhead associated with dual-format packaging. In parallel with CMAF’s mainstreaming, the 76th Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards also recognized other essential infrastructure standards. According to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (September 2025), honorees included the standardization of VOD Asset Metadata, the AV1 codec specification, and the SMPTE ST 2067 Interoperable Master Format (IMF). These awards highlight a trend toward end-to-end automation in the supply chain, from mastering to delivery. At the same ceremony, Akamai co-founder Tom Leighton received Lifetime Achievement Honors for his roles in content delivery and networking algorithms, further emphasizing the academy's focus on the plumbing that powers global streaming. Technically, the industry is now moving toward enhanced versions of these standards to support real-time interactive experiences. Akamai and Harmonic recently introduced Media Services Live 5 (MSL5) in September 2025, which uses CMAF to facilitate low-latency live workflows and server-side ad insertion (SSAI). This advancement targets the specific needs of live sports broadcasters who require sub-second latency and consistent performance across fragmented mobile and Connected TV (CTV) environments, effectively building on the interoperable foundation established by the original CMAF specification over the last decade.
Read full article at mpeg.org