A practical checklist for procurement teams evaluating whether a control-room or situation-centre deployment is ready for IPMX (Internet Protocol Media Experience, AIMS Alliance) as a mandatory tender line in 2026-2027.
By the end of 2026, more than 50% of new control-room and situation-centre tenders are projected to require IPMX + NMOS as a tender line. Procurement teams that bake the readiness check into the design phase avoid the alternative — re-doing parts of the build in 2028.
- 1 GbE access ports at the wall — IPMX with JPEG XS works on 1 GbE; ST 2110 baseband requires 10 GbE
- PTP (Precision Time Protocol) decision: mandatory for sync-critical broadcast workflows, optional for typical control-room use
- Multicast-capable switch fabric (IGMP snooping configured, IGMP version 3 on AV-over-IP interfaces)
- Sufficient port density: typical NOC source-mix (8-16 sources) plus operator-desk fan-out
- Encryption-on-the-wire requirement if applicable (IPMX supports SRTP)
- Network team trained on multicast troubleshooting (multicast pathology is the #1 operational hazard)
- NMOS IS-04 endpoint discovery — required for any IPMX deployment
- NMOS IS-05 connection management — required for any IPMX deployment
- NMOS IS-08 audio channel mapping if audio routing is in scope
- NMOS registry deployed (AMWA reference NMOS registry, Sony Nevion, Riedel, or equivalent)
- Operator training on NMOS controller UI (different paradigm from legacy matrix switchers)
- Does the vendor commit to IPMX-certified release within procurement timeline?
- If IPMX-readiness is roadmap, what is the contractual penalty for slippage?
- Source-mix breadth: NDI / RTSP / HDMI capture / IP-KVM in addition to IPMX
- Architecture: hardware-bound (Datapath / Matrox / Barco) vs software-on-commodity (Craft Wall / Hiperwall / Userful)
- 5-year TCO including IPMX-license fees and infrastructure refresh
- Direct-view LED (DV-LED) vs LCD video wall — IPMX is transport-agnostic, so either works
- Bezel budget for LCD walls (negligible on DV-LED)
- Pixel pitch for DV-LED — depends on viewing distance, not on IPMX
- Display panel firmware update path documented (some panels need vendor-specific update tooling)
- Tender language: does it require IPMX explicitly, or only "open-standard AV-over-IP"? (Some buyers want flexibility; others want the specific AIMS certification)
- Vendor inclusion in AIMS Alliance certified-products registry (verify before sign-off)
- Local regulatory compliance: GDPR for EU, FZ-187 for Russian critical infrastructure, FedRAMP for US federal, BSI C5 for German federal
- Vendor support escalation path documented and tested
- Monitoring: NMOS registry, multicast state, PTP sync (if used)
- Failover: hot-spare wall controller in N+1, hot-spare NMOS registry
- Audit trail: NMOS configuration changes logged, wall layout changes logged
- Training: operators trained on the specific wall software; integrators trained on the AV-over-IP fabric
- "NMOS-aware" ≠ NMOS-mandatory. Some vendors claim NMOS support but require manual configuration. IPMX requires NMOS as the canonical management path
- HDCP path. IPMX has native HDCP; ST 2110 does not. If commercial HDMI sources are in scope, confirm the path
- Vendor-pool depth. 48 IPMX-certified products at ISE 2026 — sufficient for typical builds, but niche I/O formats may still need ST 2110 or SDVoE
- JPEG XS licence fees. Some IPMX endpoints embed JPEG XS licensing; some require separate licence. Confirm during BOM review
- PTP requirement when "optional". Some IPMX deployments still benefit from PTP for synchronised wall playback. Decide before infrastructure design freezes
- AIMS Alliance — IPMX overview
- Craft Wall — IPMX vs ST 2110 vs SDVoE
- Craft Wall — NOC reference architecture
MIT — this checklist may be used and adapted in procurement documents with attribution.