Implementation of SMPTE metadata for advanced authoring applications

Following publication of the Final Report of the EBU/SMPTE Task Force for t he Harmonization of Standards for the Exchange of Program Material us Bit S treams (TFHS), standards-writing has proceeded within SMPTE W25 and other c ommittees, producing several appl oven standards and many others in draft f orm. Together, this work comprises the SMPTE Data Model. and Dictionary,, a significant step forward for the industry. This paper describes an impleme ntation of the SMPTE Data Model as a software developers' hit (SDK), discus ses applications, and presents performance and scaling data. The TFHS repor t also identified requirements for system integration and workflow manageme nt. The paper addresses this subject by discussing some production workflow scenarios, showing how applications may be built to exploit rite portable API and deliver new levels of system integration, Performance data is prese nted to show how the API scales to address both small and large application s. In the last several years, it has become common for post-production softwar e applications to make use of pluggable components, particularly Sor graphi cs and effects processing and in other cases for file format conversion. Th is is a powerful technique for managing an ever-expanding range of compress ion, processing and generation facilities; however; previous implementation s have suffered by being tied to single application platforms. The paper sh ows how the facilities of the SMPTE Metadata Dictionary are used in the SDK to provide platform-independent plug-in management.