From proprietary to open — how IPMX will redefine AV-over-IP standards

Calling it the catalyst that will drive the evolution of AV-over-IP from proprietary implementations towards a truly open, innovative, and futureproof ecosystem, the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) is introducing the Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX) standard in 2026.

Ahead of IPMX’s official launch at the ISE 2026, which is taking place from February 3-6, Shaun Lim of APB+ caught up with Andrew Starks, AIMS Marketing Work Group Chair and Director of Product Management at Macnica Americas, to find out more.

How do you see the IPMX influencing the adoption of open standards in Pro AV and broadcast workflows, and what does this milestone mean for interoperability across vendors?

Starks: IPMX is intended to accelerate adoption of open standards by establishing a common, well-defined interoperability framework that can scale beyond traditional broadcast environments.

In broadcast, ST 2110 and NMOS have succeeded with flexible testing approaches such as JT-NM Tested, which worked well for engineer-led deployments. IPMX extends these same open technologies into Pro AV and adjacent markets, where interoperability must be more explicit and consistent to support broader adoption.

By defining profiles and capabilities and pairing them with independent testing — initially hosted by the EBU — IPMX creates a shared understanding of how products are expected to interoperate.

This milestone represents a shift from “standards compliance in principle” toward predictable, multi-vendor interoperability in practice, enabling open standards to be applied across a much wider range of vendors, workflows, and markets.

What specific benefits will certified IPMX products deliver to manufacturers, integrators, and end-users compared to non-certified solutions, and how will the branding help signal trust in real-world deployments?

Starks: Certified IPMX products provide clear, practical benefits by reducing ambiguity around interoperability and expected behaviour in multi-vendor systems.

For manufacturers, certification establishes a well-defined implementation target. IPMX profiles and capabilities translate open specifications into concrete, shared requirements, reducing interpretation risk and ensuring products interoperate consistently with other certified devices.

For integrators, certification simplifies system design and deployment. While programs such as JT-NM Tested have been highly successful in broadcast, they intentionally allowed flexibility in what parts of the standards were implemented. Two products could both be tested yet support different feature sets. IPMX certification addresses this by making supported profiles and capabilities explicit and independently validated, reducing integration time and on-site troubleshooting.

For end-users, certification helps set realistic expectations for real-world, multi-vendor deployments. It signals that products have been tested against a common set of interoperability requirements that are clearly communicated and shared across vendors.

IPMX branding reinforces this transparency. Rather than serving as a generic compliance mark, it is tied directly to declared profiles and capabilities, allowing buyers to quickly understand what a product supports and how it fits into an interoperable IPMX system.

Beyond certification itself, what other key findings, lessons, or industry trends emerged from previous testing that you believe are important for the wider Pro AV and broadcast community to understand?

Starks: The process of developing the IPMX testing and certification framework surfaced several important lessons for the wider Pro AV and broadcast community.

First, it reinforced the value of starting from a strong foundation. IPMX builds directly on mature, well-understood open standards (ST 2110, NMOS, and the VSF TR-10 specifications) and on the experience gained through initiatives such as JT-NM Tested. That groundwork allowed the industry to focus less on inventing new mechanisms and more on defining how these technologies can be applied consistently across a broader range of use cases.

Second, it highlighted the importance of carefully balancing what belongs to a standard versus what should remain flexible. Not every best practice needs to be mandated. Some behaviours directly affect interoperability and user experience and must be defined at a baseline level; others are better left to vendors to differentiate their products and respond to market needs. 

Making those distinctions deliberately is critical to scalability.

Third, it underscored that meaningful interoperability testing is iterative and collaborative. Developing clear, testable requirements, and validating them across multiple independent implementations, requires multiple trial cycles and close coordination between standards bodies, test organisations, and manufacturers.

Interoperability does not emerge from documentation alone.

Finally, the process reinforced a broader industry trend: video and audio over IP should be treated as shared infrastructure, not as separate technologies for separate markets. When a common transport foundation is combined with clear profiles and capability signaling, it becomes possible to support diverse requirements across broadcast, Pro AV, live production, and enterprise environments within a single interoperable framework.

This convergence creates new opportunities for users and opens significantly larger markets for manufacturers, particularly those extending existing ST 2110 products to fully support IPMX.