This project was proposed by John Andrews, Vice President of the Institute of Broadcast Sound (IBS), UK. It was approved under our rules by Subcommittee SC-03 and assigned to the SC-03-06 Working Group on Audio-File Transfer and Exchange.
The core of this project started life as an industry collaboration among manufacturers and users of hard-disk based location recording equipment. The forum for the substantive discussion was hosted by the IBS, a broadcast-oriented audio group. The format was termed by them "iXML", and this name is in current use by a number of manufacturers who have implemented the proposal over the past two years.
TITLE
AES-X155, Production recording metadata set (iXML)
SCOPE
to specify an XML-based metadata set to communicate file-based and project-based metadata between various stages of audio workflow in production, telecine, editorial, and post production. Production may include recordings made in studios and on location.
OUTPUT INTENT
Standard
RATIONALE
Fragmentation within the industry means that production sound recordists now have little opportunity to communicate with post-production editors and mixers working on the same project. At the same time, the complexity of the work is increasing to handle stereo and surround-sound projects while time and resources for traditional documentation are vanishing. Items that need documenting include: scene, take, slate, channel allocation, stereo and multi-channel groupings, channel status, etc.
An agreed metadata set - automatically generated wherever possible - will help to pass consistent information through the production chain. An XML-based structure is chosen to be widely compatible with other metadata systems.
Such an agreed metadata set will also complement the metadata embedded within Broadcast Wave files (see also AES31-2)
WHO BENEFITS?
Directly: production sound recordists, postproduction editors and mixers.
Indirectly: producers of audio, television or film material, manufacturers of equipment, librarians and archivists.
WHY AES?
AES members have the necessary expertise to understand and develop the use of metadata in an audio production and post-production environment, and to encourage its use worldwide.
