Wikipedia has an OK article that's more than marketing hype & not overly involved technically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_Exchange_Format
We talk about avi & mov & mkv as being container formats for audio/video -- IMHO think of mxf as being a way to package those containers together with other data critical to your project. It sounds reasonable enough, but of course like everything video there's always this gap, at least at first, between original intent & actual execution. Start Googling on phrases with mxf, e.g. mxf conversion, & you'll see that being able to read the overall package file does not mean being able to read some new codec from some camera maker. Issues with the way audio is stored are also a bit common, e.g. as 8 mono files, though you most likely won't be dealing with more than stereo using your own camera.
And that's where most people, home users & hobbyists & such will encounter mxf -- it's what their camera records. Cameras use electronics to encode their video, much [most?] of the electronics inside cameras are patented, proprietary design, & so the actual video written to storage very often differs from one camera maker to the next in its exact compression format. So you need software that A) understands mxf, & B) understands the camera's video format. My advice, FWIW as always, would be to start by researching what other people shooting with the same camera have already figured out & are using -- hopefully that will save you a lot of time & effort if not pain.
DO bear in mind that every time you convert &/or re-encode audio/video you'll have some generational quality loss. If you can't handle the content of a audio/video file(s) as-is, it's better to just put it into another container *if* that will work, and skip any conversions. If that won't work for you, try to use Avisynth [or VapourSynth] to avoid encoding/converting to an intermediate file or files, & if that doesn't work, use a lossless codec or format for any intermediates. Nothing more than common sense really, if you re-encode your video to an intermediate file using a format that throws out data, then after whatever editing re-encode that to a format that again throws away data, the result will show the effects of reducing [throwing away] quality twice.
ffmpeg has been able to work with mxf files for several years now -- if you Google you can find lists of command line arguments you might use, &/or versions of ffmpeg more tailored to working with mxf [ffmbc]. Many of the same companies making the ffmpeg-based video convertors that show up on GOTD from time to time also have mxf apps, &/or their converters work with mxf the same way they handle other formats. Aunsoft is one of these, though they use different methods &/or files for any GPU assist that may work better or worse for you... I've tried software from Aunsoft & one other company using the same or at least very similar code for GPU assist -- on this rig with an AMD 7870 the other company's app did have GPU assist that worked, but the overall result wasn't any faster, and there were problems outputting some frame sizes -- Aunsoft's apps OTOH crashed with GPU assist on, so obviously I have no comparison data available.
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#2: "Can anyone explain me the “general purpose” of today giveaway?
I do not find that this software can find a utility for mass but only for a narrow niche."
Niche yes -- narrow no... More & more cameras record video to mxf files.
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#4: "Consequently, I intend to download and install this program because I may be able to use it to transfer videos on old video tapes to my laptop."
If you're talking about VHS, don't bother with mxf -- it'll add nothing but complexity. With VHS [& versions like Hi8 or Super VHS] you've got lower quality to start with -- if you don't intend to do any editing [trimming is OK], capture directly into the final digital format you want to have or use, & that'll avoid [sometimes an awful lot of] generational loss. Personally I found FWIW that using a Pani DVD Recorder did a better job of digitizing VHS because of its analog filter circuits vs. trying to do the same thing in software.
