The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) is close to finalizing a new recommendation for video standards: the IPTC Video Metadata Hub.

The Video Metadata Working Group, which is comprised of members worldwide from news organisations, vendors and experts in the metadata field, is planning to vote on a recommendation of the Video Metadata Hub (VMD Hub) at the IPTC Autumn Meeting, 24 – 26 October 2016, in Berlin. The final Draft #4 has been published for a last round of reviews: http://dev.iptc.org/Video-Metadata.

Because there are several different existing standards for video – for compressing video and audio, file formats and different schemas of metadata properties – IPTC is presenting a “hub” recommendation that covers many use cases and exchange of metadata over multiple standards.

The VMD Hub is comprised of a single set of video metadata properties, which can be expressed by multiple technical standards (namely XMP for metadata embedded into binary video files, and EBU Core for non-embedded metadata stored in sidecar files). These properties can be used for describing the visible and audible content, rights data, administrative details and technical characteristics of a video.

Likewise, the VMD Hub supports workflow, exchange of metadata, and search functions across other existing standards, and will include mapping to Apple Quicktime, PBCore, MPEG7 and Schema.org, and perhaps more in the future.

“Users of videos of different standards told IPTC they need a common ground in metadata for efficient workflows,” said Michael Steidl, Managing Director of IPTC. “This is what we deliver now with the Video Metadata Hub.”

The IPTC Autumn Meeting will feature a Video Day on 25 October. In addition to the presentation about the VMD Hub, speakers from video makers, video suppliers, video content publishers and system vendors will discuss how video workflows can be improved.

For information about attending the IPTC Autumn Meeting and Video Day, contact us.