CEN.BT Technical Comittee 372: Cinematographic Works

In contrast to bibliographic information, the exchange of filmographic information has fo far received little attention from the standardization community. Several recent standards specify metadata for moving images in digital formats only, with little, if any, provisions for the requirements of film archives. Most of the cinematographic heritage until the beginning of the 21st century will continue to exist on analog media, even if it will be consumed primarily in digitized form.

For these reasons, in 2005, the EC Directorate General Information Society and Media mandated the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) with the development of a metadata standard for cinematographic works. Following this mandate, the CEN Technical Office (CEN/BT) formed a task force (TF 179), later to be changed into a Technical Comittee (TC 372). The Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) was appointed as the secretariat and the Deutsches Filminstitut (DIF) was charged with appointing the convenor. Comittee members come from major standardization bodies and film archives throughout the European Union.

The Cinematographic Works Standard is being prepared in two parts:

• Part 1 specifies a minimum set of information elements for the unambiguous identification of film works. This part of the standard can also be used for structuring human-readable output from information systems implementing the second part.
  
• Part 2 is a specification for structuring machine-processable metadata about cinematographic works. This part of the standard can be used as a basis for data exchange between existing catalogue systems. It is also intended to serve as a guideline for information professionals seeking to build interoperable systems that carry information about moving images. Part 2 draws upon several existing standards, recommendations and reference models.

Part 1 has been issued as EN 15744 and is available from European standardardisation bodies such as BSI, AFNOR, and DIN; part 2 (prEN 15907) is currently in the final voting stage.

Rev. 13-Apr-2010