Qvest releases implementation guide for EBU software-defined production standards

Broadcasters are hitting the physical and financial limits of legacy SDI hardware as demands for multi-format, high-resolution content surge. This new guide provides a technical roadmap for moving from theoretical reference architectures to practical, uncompressed media production on generic IT infrastructure. By adopting MXL, streaming providers can break vendor lock-in and treat media processing as a network of portable microservices. This modularity is essential for scaling live sports and news workflows across hybrid-cloud environments without the cost overhead of peak-load hardware planning. Watch for whether major broadcast vendors begin shipping native MXL-compatible interfaces in late 2026 to support these standardized clusters.

The transition toward software-defined production is maturing beyond experimental phases as major broadcasters face infrastructure reinvestment cycles. According to a March 2026 report from Haivision, while 82% of broadcasters still rely on legacy SDI, adoption of high-performance IP standards like SMPTE ST 2110 grew to 30% this year. The EBU and the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) are positioning the MXL as the "virtual cabling" needed to connect these IP-based services at low latency. Per SVG Europe, the MXL project officially reached stable version 1.0 status in early 2026, shifting the industry focus from core development to commercial implementation.

Economic factors are also driving this technical shift toward shared memory and RDMA-based transport. Industry analysts noted in January 2026 that tier-1 broadcasters are under immense pressure to reduce total cost of ownership by utilizing COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) servers rather than bespoke hardware. To accelerate this transition, Qvest introduced open-source projects including "mxl-k8s" in June 2026, which manages uncompressed UHD streams—often exceeding 10 Gbit/s—across Kubernetes nodes. These efforts are supported by a steering committee that includes the BBC, France Télévisions, and Canada’s CBC, all aiming to establish a standardized, vendor-neutral marketplace for media functions by 2027.