Name
Standards Session: The Language Metadata Table
Date & Time
Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 3:45 PM - 4:15 PM
Timezone
UTC
Session Type
Virtual
Speakers
Description
“The good thing about standards is that there are so many of them”. Andrew S. Tannenbaum
The media and entertainment industry has a variety of metadata standards that it adheres to for a variety of purposes, and many of them include one or more fields to hold language metadata. While many of the language codes are the same, there are differences between them which causes conflict when metadata needs to be exchanged.
The Language Metadata Table (LMT) is based on IETF BCP 47 (Internet Engineering Task Force Best Current Practice #47). The result is an extensible mapping resource that is used to organize language metadata via locations and dialects. The LMT is a unified reference source of language codes for use throughout the media and entertainment industries, and is also applicable to other industries. IETF BCP 47 can have up to 40,000 combinations, which causes difficulty when trying to determine what the code should be for a specific language. The LMT is a prescribed set of language codes, which to date, exist for over 200 popular languages.
The LMT was conceived at HBO by its Metadata Management and Taxonomy department who researched internal practices and concluded that IETF BCP 47 was the best solution.
In early 2018, HBO (now part of WarnerMedia) was asked by MESAlliance to share its internal LMT with the media and entertainment industry which they did in July, 2018 at MESAlliance’s Smart Content Summit in NYC.
From that initial request, MESAlliance started and continues tp support the LMT Working Group as one of its communities of practice and runs a working committee that updates and maintains the LMT. Members include industry subject matter experts from Warner Media (HBO, Turner, Warner Bros, CNN), Disney, WWE, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, and Fox, among others.
The Language Metadata Table is now at release 3.1. Partnerships include SMPTE, MovieLabs, ISDCF and others.
The media and entertainment industry has a variety of metadata standards that it adheres to for a variety of purposes, and many of them include one or more fields to hold language metadata. While many of the language codes are the same, there are differences between them which causes conflict when metadata needs to be exchanged.
The Language Metadata Table (LMT) is based on IETF BCP 47 (Internet Engineering Task Force Best Current Practice #47). The result is an extensible mapping resource that is used to organize language metadata via locations and dialects. The LMT is a unified reference source of language codes for use throughout the media and entertainment industries, and is also applicable to other industries. IETF BCP 47 can have up to 40,000 combinations, which causes difficulty when trying to determine what the code should be for a specific language. The LMT is a prescribed set of language codes, which to date, exist for over 200 popular languages.
The LMT was conceived at HBO by its Metadata Management and Taxonomy department who researched internal practices and concluded that IETF BCP 47 was the best solution.
In early 2018, HBO (now part of WarnerMedia) was asked by MESAlliance to share its internal LMT with the media and entertainment industry which they did in July, 2018 at MESAlliance’s Smart Content Summit in NYC.
From that initial request, MESAlliance started and continues tp support the LMT Working Group as one of its communities of practice and runs a working committee that updates and maintains the LMT. Members include industry subject matter experts from Warner Media (HBO, Turner, Warner Bros, CNN), Disney, WWE, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, and Fox, among others.
The Language Metadata Table is now at release 3.1. Partnerships include SMPTE, MovieLabs, ISDCF and others.
Technical Depth of Presentation
fundamental
What Attendees will Benefit Most from this Presentation
Everyone in the broadcast and media industry: Content Creators, Technical, Distribution, including Marketing etc.
Take-Aways from this Presentation
• The Language Metadata Table is a set of language codes approved by a committee of metadata and entertainment peers.
• The codes meet the technical (eg IMF) and descriptive metadata requirements of content creators, as well as by content metadata registries (eg EIDR), distribution standards (MovieLabs, ISDCF), and technical metadata standards bodies (eg SMPTE).
• LMT is the language code solution that is needed, no matter what.