SMPTE, the 110 year-old, international standards organization for the entertainment technology industry, has made their vast catalog of technical standards freely available to anyone, thereby eliminating the requirement to purchase documents, each for well over $100. This includes their massive back catalog as well as the most recent and future publications.
The decision to make their Standards catalog openly accessible aligns with SMPTE’s desire to help maintain interoperability in the face of modern, fast-moving technologies continually influencing a traditionally specialized industry for motion picture and television professionals. At the same time, open access can encourage greater involvement in contributing to existing or future standards development.
Perhaps the most significant of today’s SMPTE standards is ST 2110 for sending media over IP network infrastructure. Technology and solutions providers can now freely access all relevant documentation without the accumulative cost of thousands of dollars for the foundational publications, plus all relevant documentation that goes along with them.
For anyone needing to perform technical research related to media production or presentation, this is also a fantastic opportunity to get firsthand knowledge easily, without having to rely on third-party interpretations just to get around the prohibitive costs of getting the original documentation.
SMPTE’s announcement could put the onus on related organizations, such as the Audio Engineering Society (AES), to follow suit and make at least a significant portion of their standards publications openly available.