The History of SMPTE and Digitization

Abstract

SMPTE has been involved with the process of digitization, in one form or another, for over half the period of its existence. For more than the last four decades, the Society has been engaged actively in the process of transformation of its constituent industry segments from use of analog to use of digital technologies. SMPTE's involvement has matured from reporting on work done elsewhere in research and commercial settings, to conducting research directly, to developing technologies and standards for use by the industries it serves. The fields in which SMPTE has been engaged in the process of digitization have evolved from various control applications, to digital video and audio signal coding, to various forms of data transport, to signal data compression, to generation and use of metadata, to treatment of content as files, to all of the aspects of data workflows and content management. To deal with the very significant set of SMPTE contributions to the digitization of the motion imaging industries, this paper takes a more-or-less chronological approach. Many of the developments cited are from the author's personal recollections.