SMPTE Initiates Official Standardization Process for Control Plane
Unifying Media Control: The Rise of Catena
In a groundbreaking move, the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) has introduced the Catena control plane standard, aiming to revolutionize the way media devices and services are controlled across diverse environments. The initial Catena documents, introduced during the June quarterly SMPTE Technology Committee meetings in Tokyo, are the result of extensive work by the Rapid Industry Solutions Open Services Alliance group (RIS-OSA)[5].
Chris Lennon, director of standards strategy for Ross Video and a SMPTE Fellow, emphasized the importance of Catena, stating, "Catena represents one of the most ambitious and essential standardization efforts SMPTE has undertaken in recent years. With media workflows now spanning on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments, the need for a unified, secure, and vendor-agnostic control plane is more urgent than ever[5]."
The media industry currently relies on hundreds of proprietary protocols to control devices, creating a significant challenge for a unified control plane[5]. Catena, as an open-source, vendor and platform-agnostic solution, offers a single secure protocol for controlling devices and services—from the tiniest microservices to the most complex physical devices[1].
Thomas Bause Mason, SMPTE's director of standards development, explained the need for Catena, stating, "Catena offers a new model based on open standards, community-driven development, and a pragmatic path to implementation. Designed to address every device, service, and system in any environment, it offers the adaptable, future-proof approach we need[5]."
The initial suite of Catena documents, consisting of ST 2138-00: Catena Overview; ST 2138-10: Catena Model; ST 2138-11: gRPC Connection Type; ST 2138-12: REST Connection Type; and ST 2138-50: Catena Security, have been transitioned into SMPTE's 34CS Technology Committee for the official standardization process[5]. SMPTE has also established a Catena repository on GitHub, housing interface files, schema, and other supporting resources[5].
As the Catena standard matures, SMPTE plans to advance it from Public Committee Draft (PCD) status as soon as practical, followed by a pause for implementers to integrate Catena into their products and provide feedback[5]. Following the implementation and review period, the documents will quickly move forward through the final standardization and approval stages[5].
In essence, Catena aims to unify the media industry by providing a common language and set of rules for controlling devices and services, addressing the longstanding fragmentation caused by multiple proprietary protocols. As an open-source, platform-agnostic standard, Catena promises to enhance interoperability, ensure security, and promote scalability, ultimately streamlining workflows and reducing costs across the industry[1][5].
- The Catena control plane standard, designed to unify media industry devices and services, emphasizes the need for a common language and set of rules, leveraging data-and-cloud-computing technology to streamline workflows and reduce costs.
- Catena, an open-source, vendor and platform-agnostic solution, offers a single secure protocol for controlling media industry products and services, from microservices to complex physical devices, bridging the gap caused by hundreds of proprietary protocols.
