Top-tier live event production demands using best-in-class tools from multiple vendors. To maximize workflow flexibility and server utilization, containerized software on multi-core/multi-GPU servers has become essential. But the industry needs a common mechanism to connect together these containerized media processing functions from different customer-curated vendors while maintaining uncompressed video and audio quality.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) is a layered model for software-defined production infrastructures, allowing users to make independent technology choices. DMF operates on generic IT infrastructure (compute, networking, storage, and timing) and supports dynamic software media function deployment across on-premises, remote, or cloud environments.

The DMF Media eXchange Layer (MXL) SDK enables high-performance interchange between software media functions. It provides a common, vendor-neutral platform with clear observability. MXL uses the lowest latency asynchronous data transfer methods to avoid delays in the live signal chain. Shared memory is used for same-host functions, and remote direct memory access (RDMA) OS-bypass networking is used for cross-host communication. The Linux Foundation hosts the open source MXL Project in collaboration with the EBU and the North American Broadcasting Association (NABA). The SDK code is available on a public GitHub repository under the open-source Apache-2.0 license.

This presentation will describe the essential technology elements of MXL, provide an update on the current status of the open source project, and will show how multiple vendors have already demonstrated interoperability of the MXL SDK at the IBC 2025 trade show.