SMPTE launches multiple member-driven initiatives

WHITE PLAINS, USA: Following a comprehensive global survey to assess how it can best serve broadcast, broadband, and cinema professionals, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the worldwide leader in motion-imaging standards and education for the communications, media, and entertainment industries, unveiled a comprehensive and multi-faceted expansion of the scope and reach of its offerings – one designed to bridge the gap in the motion-imaging workforce between audiovisual (AV) and information-technology (IT) professionals.

Key elements of the announcement include a new conference on emerging-media technologies to be held in Geneva 13-15 May of 2012 and co-produced by SMPTE and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU); a strategic relationship to co-locate the Society’s upcoming stereoscopic 3D conference with NewBay Media’s DV Expo East exposition in June in New York City; and the selection of Stanford University’s HighWire Press to create a SMPTE digital library.

“SMPTE is driven to support the needs of motion-imaging researchers, practitioners, and business decision makers,” said Society president Pete Ludé. “Today’s announcements reflect what our industry leaders and members say they need to thrive in the new digital media ecosystem.”

SMPTE survey respondents spoke repeatedly of a shift in the motion-imaging workforce from one dominated by AV experts with engineering degrees to one composed increasingly of professionals from the computer science, image processing, and IT sectors – and an industry landscape that is being remade by new IP-based content consumption, delivery devices, business models.

To help industry leaders keep pace with these changes, SMPTE will convene the SMPTE Forum on Emerging Media Technologies 13-15 May 2012 in Geneva, Switzerland. Co-produced with the EBU, the gathering will bring together thought leaders and business decision makers to examine key emerging technologies – from those likely to come onto the market in three years to those whose commercialization is a decade away.