SMPTE and the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) have collaborated on a pilot project in an attempt to define a prototype SMPTE Specifications process.
The two organisations have delivered the first draft SMPTE Specification, which focuses on the use of the Interoperable Master Format (IMF), or SMPTE ST 2067, for broadcast and online applications.
The documents, which were presented during the recent HPA Tech Retreat, were written with input by the DPP, SMPTE, the North American Broadcasters Association and the European Broadcasting Union, as well as industry manufacturers and end users. The draft is now available for public comment.
The draft specification addresses constraints for IMF for broadcast and online applications, including MXF Track Files, composition playlists, output profile lists and IMF packages. The specification will reference other activities, such as the EBU.io/qc project for carrying quality-control metadata and EBU-TT, as well as optional methods for carrying EBU-STL subtitles in Europe and CTA-608/CTA-708 captions in North America.
It specification was built on the IMF standard and will help enable broadcasters to use IMF workflows with their existing content archives and facilitate the realisation of file-based interoperability on a large scale.
The prototype SMPTE Specifications process will be exercised with these documents with the process being documented and reviewed by the SMPTE board of governors before being offered to the industry as a specification service to all. Once finalised, the new SMPTE documents will join other SMPTE technical publications, including standards.
The draft documents are available here.
