The Media Dispatch Group was created in 2003 as an activity of the Professional-MPEG Forum to create a vendor-neutral open technology to create integrated solutions for the professional exchange of large media files securely over IP networks. Members of the Media Dispatch Group include representatives from broadcasters, facility houses, equipment manufacturers, and the digital cinema production community, as well as liaisons with the wider standards community.
Recent developments in media technology have concentrated on the convergence of digital media with computers, leading towards completely tape-less systems for broadcast media. Moving to a completely integrated system offers cost advantages as well as the promise of increased efficiency and reliability of the whole system through the greater use of automation. For this reason, many organizations are moving or getting ready to move to the use of file-based digital media, both within their organizations and between organizations.
However, there is no generally accepted integrated solution for the secure exchange of large media files in the professional environment. The Pro-MPEG Forum set up this group was created to define a recommended practice for securely dispatching large media files over IP networks, using a collection of existing interchange standards.
The main focus of the group is currently to define, implement and test the Media Dispatch Protocol (MDP), an open protocol for organisations to initiate a delivery, agree on the details of how it should happen, and manage the delivery.