SMPTE Opens Entire Standards Library to Public at No Cost

[Jay Wyatt]

The great paywall for SMPTE standards has finally been lifted.

Official Article

A few greatest hits:

ST 202:2010 -- B-Chain Electroacoustic Response
RP 2096-1:2017-- Cinema Sound Baseline Calibration & Setup
RP 2096-2:2017 -- Cinema Sound Maintenence Calibration
ST 2098 -- Immersive Audio Bitstream
ST 429 -- D-Cinema Packaging

[Marcel Birgelen]

Ok, that's some great news. Maybe someone start mirroring those standards before they decide that they want $50 for a 2-page document again...

[Frank Cox]

I know that a lot of people disagree with me but I've always thought that if something is a standard, then it should be available free of charge. No charge for the write-up (except maybe a minimal per-page copying fee back in the days before everything could be downloaded) and no patented "inventions" included in the standard; if you want something you've patented included in the standard then you have to provide it at no charge to anyone who wishes to use it.

If I have to pull money out of my pocket to read it or use it then it isn't a real standard, and that should give the "smart people" an incentive to create a real standard if having one is beneficial to the industry.

[Kyle Mikolajczyk]

This is fantastic news! Already downloading a bunch that might be helpful

[Harold Hallikainen]

This is indeed great! ISDCF has been promoting this idea for quite a while. They were concerned that people are creating DCPs without access to the actual standards resulting in content that will not play. When I was with QSC, we paid over $5k per year for a subscription to the SMPTE standards. They were very strict about usage of the standards. When we did not renew the subscription, they wanted certification that we had deleted all copies.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I know that a lot of people disagree with me but I've always thought that if something is a standard, then it should be available free of charge. No charge for the write-up (except maybe a minimal per-page copying fee back in the days before everything could be downloaded) and no patented "inventions" included in the standard; if you want something you've patented included in the standard then you have to provide it at no charge to anyone who wishes to use it.

If I have to pull money out of my pocket to read it or use it then it isn't a real standard, and that should give the "smart people" an incentive to create a real standard if having one is beneficial to the industry.

The general argument is: Those engineers that came up with the standards also want to be able to pay their lunch... On the other hand, you could say that developing a standard is the cost of doing business...

But yeah, I also think that any real, serious standard should be open and free for everybody to use, at least if it wants to call itself a standard. Still, the world remains full of "pay to play" standard solutions, especially in the audio-visual space.

They were very strict about usage of the standards. When we did not renew the subscription, they wanted certification that we had deleted all copies.

Did they send some dude in a black suit to you, that asked you to look at the flash?

[Harold Hallikainen]

On "Those engineers that came up with the standards also want to be able to pay their lunch," those participating in standards committees volunteer and are not paid (though their company probably pays for their time). On patents, those participating in a standards committee are required to make patent disclosures where the patent may affect the implementation of the standard. Standards can specify patented technology if licenses are available on a Reasonable And Non Discriminatory basis. Standards committee generally try to avoid the use of patented technology, but sometimes the patented technology is the best way to handle the problem.

Harold
Former chair of committee establishing the closed captioning interface standards (430-10, 430-11) and the subtitling committee, and former member of several other standards committees in SMPTE.

[Frank Cox]

sometimes the patented technology is the best way to handle the problem.

The mere fact that the technology is patented removes it from being the best way to handle the problem.

Now if it's a patent on the fact that water is wet then the patent is likely invalid/unconstitutional in the USA since it is no longer "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts" (rather the opposite) and whatever similar wording is used in other countries that also grant patents, or alternatively "There is no current standardized method to do this" is a valid position to take until the obstacle is removed.

The example that immediately springs to mind is mp3, which was a patented algorithm and ogg vorbis was invented as a substitute/work-around. When the mp3 patents expired, ogg sort of faded out but it was and still is a perfectly useful and standardized way to encode audio.

Again, this is just my personal viewpoint and you are welcome to take another position.

As Marcel stated above, if you're in an industry that benefits from standards then the creation of those standards is a cost of doing business and the standards should be freely available for use and reference by anyone who may need them.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Another method SMPTE has for interoperability of equipment is the Registered Disclosure. These are not standards but are, instead, a manufacturer saying "here's what our interface looks like." Use of the technology in an RDD may require a license or may not. See, for example, https://pub.smpte.org/doc/rdd29/20181120-pub/ . This document became an input document for establishing the standard for the immersive audio bitstream ( https://pub.smpte.org/doc/st429-18/20230912-pub/ ). I participated in this standard a lot. Much of my work was ensuring the standard could stand alone and not rely upon some undocumented inside knowledge.

[Marcel Birgelen]

On "Those engineers that came up with the standards also want to be able to pay their lunch," those participating in standards committees volunteer and are not paid (though their company probably pays for their time).

Maybe that's the way SMPTE operates, but this really differs between standard issuing body. People working for ISO, for example, are usually employed via their local government representation. Something like the USB standard then again, is maintained by a consortium existing primarily out of suppliers like Intel, Apple, etc. In this case, every member also pays their own engineers...

[Jay Wyatt]

SMPTE participant since 2013 when Harold brought me into the fold on 2098. Even as contributor, I felt it was a shame the time and effort spent would go to waste with the standards docs and RPs locked behind paywall. This is a huge step forward. Enjoy the open access, hopefully this helps further sharpen the industry.

[Harold Hallikainen]

And I really enjoyed working with Jay. He knows his stuff! We had a good engineering team at USL.

[Chris Haller]

This is a beautiful thing, especially as I just bought my own set of equipment to EQ our theaters after splitting the surrounds from 5.1 into 7.1. Perfect timing for me, who could not afford the equipment AND the standards!

[Steve Guttag]

I've been in the SMPTE since the 1980s My card probably would tell me which year...I've been in the standards community of that, and on, in particular, P3 (projection) until SMPTE changed the designations and I continued until the last 10-years or so when time just was too tight for me to make a meaningful contribution (how to measure light in a cinema was the last document I participated in).

What I found odd during the restructuring was that participants in the standards, who Harold describes as volunteers, actually have to PAY to participate. Thats right. Not only do you donate your time, you get to pay for the privilege of putting in the time and then SMPTE gets to charge for the outcome. It's a beautiful thing! The thought behind it, or so it was explained to me, was that since most members work for a company that is paying for one of the tiered memberships that include committee membership, it forces companies to pitch in on the standards for which they benefit. Its a model that doesn't work for those of us that self-funded and stand to gain nothing by participation (for which you could argue to get a pass on paying to be on the committees...plead poverty...something I also didn't appreciate).

I am in favor of the standards being made available free-of-charge. As I understand it, they are being underwritten by the top tier supporters. Nothing is free. Someone is putting in the time (a lot of someones) and someone is maintaining the documents and keeping them up. It doesn't happen by magic. i can tell you with my time on the various committees, the people on them are very selfless. I did not see anything that lead one to think a member was trying to steer a direction that favored their company. And if they did, it is because they actually believed that their method, belief, data, made that position the best one. There were spirited discussions on many subjects (probably the most "exciting" being on ST202 and the various methods of measuring sound and how to create such a document that can be applied in the field).

The only time I really disagreed with the committee was on the withdrawal of a document that was valid, by the data, but was politically inconvenient. I understood why something had to be done but I didn't agree with what was done because the reasons given were false.

[Harold Hallikainen]

According to https://projects.propublica.org/nonp...349301605/full , SMPTE made about $264k on standards last year out of total revenue of about $3M.