Introduction

The generic mapping of the DV family of compressed streams into MXF is standardized in SMPTE 383M. There are several different variants of the DV specification in use both in the consumer space and in the professional space. The MXF mapping document, SMPTE 383M, concentrates on the similarities in the DV variants in order to present them to an MXF application as a single essence class. At the time of designing the MXF specification, there were several ways in which audio was handled within DV files which gave rise to long debates about cheese but more of that later. Samples of DV MXF files can be found at http://www.themxfbook.com/ .

DV Basics

DV is a DCT block based compression scheme that was originally designed for intra-frame coding with a fixed number of bits per video frame so that storage on a helically scanned tape was straightforward. The manufacturers of DV equipment made some variations between their equipment models that led to a number of different compression standards, all of which bear the title DV. Among these are:

• IEC61834 2 (1998 08), Recording Helical-Scan Digital Video Cassette Recording System using 6.35mm Magnetic Tape for Consumer Use (525 60, 625 50, 1125 60 and 1250 50 Systems), Part 2: SD format for 525 60 and 625 50 Systems.

• SMPTE 314M-1999, TelevisionData Structure for DV-Based Audio, Data, and Compressed Video 25 and 50 Mbps.

• SMPTE 370M-2002, Television Data Structure for DV-Based Audio, Data, and Compressed Video at 100 Mbps 1080/601, 1080/50i, 720/60p.

For most professional users of...