The launch of IPMX certification marks a significant step for AV over IP. With 11 manufacturers and 48 certified products at introduction, the ecosystem already spans a broad set of real-world applications, including encoders, decoders, gateways, cameras, displays, and processing platforms. These products represent the early foundation of an interoperable environment designed to work across vendors and system types. A second certification event later this year is already in planning, with increased participation expected as more manufacturers bring products forward.
IPMX now exists as a multi-vendor ecosystem with certified products available for deployment. Early system designs and evaluations are beginning to take shape around IPMX as a foundation for open, standards-based media transport. Attention is shifting toward how these systems integrate, how they are secured, and how they are managed across increasingly complex environments.
As IPMX moves into early deployment, the conversation naturally shifts from specification to system behavior. Attention centers on how devices interact across vendors, how systems are configured and controlled, and how they fit within existing IT environments. These considerations will shape how IPMX is implemented in practice and how it is evaluated by integrators and end users.
At this stage, three areas carry particular weight: trust and security, interoperability through certification, and the continued expansion of capabilities to support a wider range of applications. Each of these areas reflects ongoing work across the IPMX community and contributes to how the ecosystem develops over time.
Trust and Security
Historically, security in AV-over-IP environments has been inconsistent across vendors and system types. Manufacturers have implemented their own approaches to access control, encryption, and device trust, with limited interoperability between systems. Even widely used mechanisms such as HDCP are applied unevenly, particularly when extended beyond point-to-point connections. This has made it difficult to build multi-vendor systems that handle protected content and secure control in a predictable way.
IPMX is introducing a baseline approach to security designed for interoperability across vendors and environments. These capabilities are defined as part of the standard and can be implemented alongside vendor-specific security measures. The goal is to establish consistent methods for identity, access control, and encryption that align with modern IT practices while remaining flexible enough to support a wide range of deployments and innovations.
At the media layer, Privacy Encryption Protocol (PEP) defines a common method for encrypting content between devices from different manufacturers. This enables protected media to move through a multi-vendor system, representing the first interoperable approach to content encryption in Pro AV-over-IP environments.
At the control and management layer, work aligned with Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) IS-10 defines a framework for authentication and authorization based on widely adopted IT technologies. These include TLS-secured communication, OAuth 2.0 authorization flows, and JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for conveying identity and permissions. This model allows systems to verify device identity, control access to APIs, and manage permissions in a consistent and scalable way.
The IPMX registry contributes to this foundation by serving as a source of truth for certified devices, including what was tested and when. This allows operators and system designers to confirm that a device has been validated against IPMX requirements and to understand its expected behavior within a deployment. Planned enhancements will expand the registry to include additional product and transport-related specifications, along with tools for manufacturers to manage and update their own information. Over time, this will provide a more complete view of device capabilities and interoperability across the ecosystem.
Certification and Interoperability
Certification is central to how IPMX achieves interoperability within deployed systems. The first official IPMX Product Testing and Certification Event, held in January 2026 at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Geneva, established the initial baseline for validating device behavior across vendors. This event marked the transition from pre-release interoperability work into a formal certification process, where products were formally tested against defined transport, timing, and system requirements.
The next certification event will build on that foundation with a focus on refining the process itself. Efforts are underway to improve efficiency, reduce the time required for testing, and identify gaps that impact real-world interoperability. These refinements are informed directly by the behavior observed during testing and early product deployment, ensuring that the certification process continues to reflect practical system requirements.
Longer term, the certification program is evolving to support broader participation and scale. This includes expanding testing to additional facilities worldwide and developing workflows that allow manufacturers to complete certification without requiring physical presence at a single event. These changes aim to make certification a more accessible process while maintaining consistent validation across the ecosystem.
Future Profiles and Capabilities
IPMX Profiles and Capabilities define how devices express supported formats and behaviors in a consistent, testable way. Today, this includes uncompressed video and audio, along with JPEG-XS for visually lossless compression, providing a foundation that spans high-quality production and bandwidth-constrained environments.
Several additional capabilities are approaching certification. HKEP and HDCP handling, along with PEP, have progressed through multi-vendor testing with demonstrated interoperability across implementations. Formal certification of these capabilities is planned for later this year, bringing consistent handling of protected content and encrypted media transport into certified workflows.
USB extension is advancing along a similar path, with support for USB 2.0 transport and integration with PEP to enable encrypted USB traffic. This extends IPMX into KVM and other USB-enabled workflows, with certification expected to follow closely behind as the supporting capabilities are finalized.
HEVC and AVC profiles are also nearing completion. These compression formats are a focus area due to strong industry interest and their role in enabling efficient transport across a broader range of existing product implementations.
IPMX continues to evolve through this model, with new capabilities introduced, tested, and certified in a structured way that maintains interoperability across the ecosystem.
For the AV industry, IPMX is moving from concept to something that can be specified, deployed, and evaluated in real projects. The certified product base established in Geneva gives system designers a concrete starting point for multi-vendor AV over IP work, while the parallel progress on security, USB extension, and compression profiles addresses the practical questions that come up once these systems reach the rack. In the coming year the conversation will be less about whether IPMX is ready and more about how it performs in the field, how integrators build around it, and how quickly the certified ecosystem expands to cover the full range of Pro AV applications.
