About Standards

As an internationally recognized standards organization, SMPTE provides a vital technical framework to the industry with over 800 standards, recommended practices, and engineering guidelines that touch nearly every piece of motion-imaging content. SMPTE standards ensure that this content is seen and heard in the highest possible quality on any display screen, while they enable repeatable workflows for content creators and distributors, as well as the manufacturers who support them.

By providing structure, organization and interoperability, SMPTE has helped advance the motion-imaging industry through all of its major transitions. From the advent of sound and color to the shift from analog to digital formats, receiving an Oscar® and multiple Emmy® Awards for its work, SMPTE has been the innovator of some of the most iconic standards for high-quality content, as well as those that are facilitating the transition to an IP-based multiscreen world. And SMPTE continues to innovate at a rapid clip.

Today's key standards include SMPTE ST 2110, Material eXchange Format (MXF), Interoperable Master Format (IMF), D-Cinema, Serial Digital Interface (SDI and HD-SDI), and Time Code, while emerging standards, such as High Dynamic Range (HDR), and the increasing use of metadata, continue to ensure that all areas of the industry have a common foundation for development, operation, and quality. SMPTE continues to drive the evolution of media technology with ongoing development of new standards, and provides opportunities to participate in in-depth research, by way of an AI in Media Task Force, a Sustainability Study Group, and a Content Provenance and Authenticity in Media Study Group.

SMPTE is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and recognized by the International Standards Organization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as an Approved Reference Organization.

Standards development is a collaborative process dedicated to improved workflow, global interoperability, and uncompromising quality. We encourage all interested SMPTE members to take advantage of this unique opportunity by volunteering to work with the industry's top technologists to help shape the future through Standards development.

Committee Scopes

The general scope of all Technology Committees is to develop SMPTE Engineering Documents, review existing documents to ensure that they are current with established engineering practices and are compatible with international engineering documents, recommend and develop test specifications, methods, and materials, and to prepare tutorial material on engineering subjects for publication in the SMPTE Journal or for other means of dissemination benefiting the Society and the industry.