How the lessons of the 19th-century workshop explain the future of AMWA NMOS and the shift to a Service Economy.
In the mid-19th century, Sir Joseph Whitworth gave the world a standard for the screw thread. It was a masterpiece of order, intended to make the mechanical world predictable. But while Britain invented the standard, it lost the manufacturing war. Why? Because British workshops refused to let go of “The Fitter.”
The Fitter was a craftsman who took a standard bolt and, with a hand file, scraped and shaped it until it fit perfectly into a specific hole. It was high-quality, bespoke work. It was also slow, expensive, and ultimately doomed. America, conversely, adopted the “American System of Manufactures,” pursuing true interchangeability where any part fit any machine without human intervention.
Today, the broadcast industry stands at the exact same precipice. We have our standards (SMPTE ST 2110), but many facilities are still trapped in the mindset of “The Fitter.” We are hand-fitting IP addresses and manually routing flows, treating modern precision networks like bespoke craft projects.
To move from a hardware Powerhouse to a software Service Economy, we must stop rejecting the innovation of automation. We must embrace the precision of AMWA NMOS.
The Modern “Hand-Fitting”: The Static Spreadsheet
In the traditional SDI world, the “Fitter” was the systems integrator who physically soldered cables and traced wires. In the early days of IP broadcast, the Fitter didn’t disappear—he just moved into Excel.
Building a facility by manually assigning multicast IP addresses, hard-coding routes, and maintaining a static “spreadsheet of truth” is the modern equivalent of filing a bolt to fit a nut. It works for low-volume, bespoke setups. But it scales linearly with cost and complexity. You are trapped in a cycle where every new camera or console requires a skilled human to “fit” it into the system.
This is where the industry often claims the technology is flawed. “IP is too complex,” they say. “Plug-and-play doesn’t work.”
It is not flawed. It promises exactly what was promised: Interchangeability. We just haven’t adopted the tools to use it.
Enter NMOS: The Interchangeable Part
The AMWA NMOS (Networked Media Open Specifications) suite—specifically IS-04 and IS-05—is the broadcast equivalent of the manufacturing tolerance gauge. It removes the file from the Fitter’s hand.
* IS-04 (Discovery & Registration): This is the end of the static spreadsheet. When a device plugs in, it announces itself. “I am a camera, I have these capabilities.” The system registers it automatically. No human needs to type an IP address into a router config.
* IS-05 (Device Connection Management): This is the universal wrench. It provides a standard way to tell a device to “subscribe” to a stream, regardless of who manufactured it.
By standardizing behavior (not just the cable), NMOS allows for true mass production of workflows. You can swap a Sony camera for a Grass Valley camera, and the control system (the “Assembler”) doesn’t care. The parts are interchangeable.
From Powerhouse to Service Economy
The resistance to this shift comes from a love of the “Powerhouse” model. For decades, broadcasters bought “Big Iron”—massive, monolithic routers that were the center of the universe. They were bespoke, expensive, and comforting.
But the world has moved to a Service Economy.
* The Powerhouse Model: “I own a 500lb router that I manually configure.” (Low volume, High Cost).
* The Service Model: “I consume routing services from a network fabric that self-organizes.” (High Scale, Agile).
Precision competes with Bespoke. In a bespoke world, you pay for the hours of the craftsman. In a precision world, you pay for the efficiency of the platform. If broadcasters want to survive against the agility of streamers and cloud-native startups, they cannot afford the “luxury” of hand-fitted infrastructures.
Don’t Reject the Innovation
It is easy to look at the complexity of NMOS registries and API calls and long for the simplicity of a BNC connector. But that simplicity is a trap. It limits your scale to what your hands can physically manage.
Whitworth’s thread was perfect, but it was the method of use that determined the winner. Britain kept filing bolts and lost the market. America automated the fit and built the 20th century.
Broadcasters must give up the old idea that “hands-on” configuration equals quality. The value is no longer in the manual connection; it is in the orchestration of the flow. Trust the standard. Drop the file. Let the system do the fitting.