The SMPTECore standard provides definitions for a core set of descriptive (only) metadata as a reference to support interoperable use across diverse professional broadcast and feature motion picture workflows and user tasks.

The SMPTE Core set of elements is common to existing metadata standards in use in the broadcasting and feature motion picture communities.

Because the purpose of these metadata elements is to be adapted to various implementation frameworks, technical details (e.g. datatypes of each element) are out of scope. As a consequence, this standard proposes a set of definitions and is not a technical specification containing all details required for a corresponding compliant implementation.

The SMPTECore supports multi-lingual metadata.

The SMPTECore proposes mechanisms to use controlled vocabularies or classification schemes.

The controlled vocabularies and classification schemes themselves are out of scope. This standard provides an informative xml representation of SMPTECore to illustrate an example of implementation of the proposed metadata set