Advanced Authoring Format (AAF)

What is Advanced Authoring Format (AAF)?
Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) is a cross-platform file format that enables data to be exchanged between multimedia tools.

The format was developed by Microsoft in 1998 and was intended to be a popular file format that all multimedia authoring applications can use to create multimedia presentations.

AAF aims to give designers the ability to use a wealth of tools to develop multimedia content without having to convert the files from one format to another. The AAF project is created and executed by the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA).

AAF is designed to enable cross-platform, multivendor interoperability for the creation of computerized digital video production. AAF supports two types of data exchange: essence data, which includes audio, video, graphics, still images, text animation, and various other forms of multimedia data and metadata that can be defined as additional information about essence data (or simply put, data about other data).

The essence data is the essential data within a multimedia program that can be realized directly by the target audience, while the metadata generally contains the information necessary to combine and modify the sections of the essence data in the AAF file and to create a complete multimedia program .

AAF can be broken down into two important parts:

- Object specification

- Reference implementation of the software development kit

Some of the most important properties of AAF are:

- Defines complex relationships that are described based on the object model

- Allows the exchange of metadata

- Allows you to follow the progress of the program through its source elements up to final production

- Allows all elements of a project to be wrapped for archiving