The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them! There are many metadata standards, most of which don’t have a role in production, therefore I only cover those that you are likely to encounter.
The metadata standards I want to consider are:
- EXIF (Exchangeable Image File)
- IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council)
- Spotlight
- Camera
- Dublin Core
- XMP (Adobe)
- iXML and BWF (Broadcast Audio Extension)
- MPEG-7 & MPEG-21
- SMPTE 2021 (BXF — Broadcast eXchange Format)
Final Cut Pro X deals with first four specifically; Premiere Pro supports EXIF and Dublin Core explicitly, but supports most metadata schemas via XMP metadata. iXML metadata is read into Final Cut Pro X directly from version 10.3 onward or using Intelligent Assistance’s Sync-N-Link X for earlier versions.
I would expect that most people in postproduction would never have heard of MPEG-7 or MPEG-21. The Motion Picture Experts Group were building on their mega hits — MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 — by attempting to set standards in metadata and Digital Rights Management (DRM) as well as in container formats and codec. There has been almost no uptake of MPEG-7 or MPEG-21 and for practical purposes we can ignore them.
Similarly there has been little uptake of the SMPTE 2021 BXF standard so far.