News Stories

Managing the Metadata Mess: ETC and Industry Efforts

1.8.2010

KC_Small_squareKC Blake, ETC director of business development, reported on Thursday about the status of work by an ETC-chaired working group to “make the metadata mess manageable.”

Although dozens of groups are working on metadata schemas, the ETC’s focus is on driving consensus of the most basic distribution/marketing metadata like genre, director, actors, synopsis, and other fields.  Every distributor has different requirements and widely different vocabularies. This problem is compounded as new distributors come on-line, introducing even more variation in metadata.

Creating industry best practices for distribution metadata would bring consistency to this confusion, and eliminate the need for studios to reconfigure their data to different requirement docs each time they work through a new distributor.  It would also help consumers more easily search for their favorite content in a future where digital delivery is the norm.

The members of ETC’s group bring a unique expertise in distribution issues for entertainment content.  The group includes members from Deluxe, Sony, Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Technicolor, Cisco, and Singapore Infocomm Development Authority.

They’re working on problems including:
– Create industry-wide schema superset
– Define fields and common exceptions
– Unique identifiers, including for assets, cast, and crew
– Standardize XML delivery
– Develop mappings to major distributors

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ETC has set up an industry reflector forum for the exchange of ideas and moderated discussions on specific topics around the standardization of distribution metadata.

Anyone interested from content creators, distributors, device manufacturers, and standards bodies is invited to join the conversation.

To sign up, send an email to kcblake@etcenter.org, and your name will be added to the reflector mailing list.

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Specification for Naming VFX Image Sequences Released

ETC’s VFX Working Group has published a specification for best practices naming image sequences such as plates and comps. File naming is an essential tool for organizing the multitude of frames that are inputs and outputs from the VFX process. Prior to the publication of this specification, each organization had its own naming scheme, requiring custom processes for each partner, which often resulted in confusion and miscommunication.

The new ETC@USC specification focuses primarily on sequences of individual images. The initial use case was VFX plates, typically delivered as OpenEXR or DPX files. However, the team soon realized that the same naming conventions can apply to virtually any image sequence. Consequently, the specification was written to handle a wide array of assets and use cases.

To ensure all requirements are represented, the working group included over 2 dozen participants representing studios, VFX houses, tool creators, creatives and others.  The ETC@USC also worked closely with MovieLabs to ensure that the specification could be integrated as part of their 2030 Vision.

A key design criteria for this specification is compatibility with existing practices.  Chair of the VFX working group, Horst Sarubin of Universal Pictures, said: “Our studio is committed to being at the forefront of designing best industry practices to modernize and simplify workflows, and we believe this white paper succeeded in building a new foundation for tools to transfer files in the most efficient manner.”

This specification is compatible with other initiatives such as the Visual Effects Society (VES) Transfer Specifications. “We wanted to make it as seamless as possible for everyone to adopt this specification,” said working group co-chair and ETC@USC’s Erik Weaver. “To ensure all perspectives were represented we created a team of industry experts familiar with the handling of these materials and collaborated with a number of industry groups.”

“Collaboration between MovieLabs and important industry groups like the ETC is critical to implementing the 2030 Vision,” said Craig Seidel, SVP of MovieLabs. “This specification is a key step in defining the foundations for better software-defined workflows. We look forward to continued partnership with the ETC on implementing other critical elements of the 2030 Vision.”

The specification is available online for anyone to use.

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