This National Standard of Canada is equivalent to International Standard ISO/IEC 14496-23:2008. 1 Scope This International Standard defines the Symbolic Music Representation technology. By capitalising the
Symbolic Music Representation technology the acronym “SMR” has been derived.
A symbolic representation of music is a logical structure based on symbolic elements representing audiovisual
events, the relationship between those events, and aspects related to how those events can be rendered and
synchronized with other media types.
Many symbolic representations of music exist, including different styles of notation for chant, classical music,
jazz and 20th-century styles; percussion notation; and simplified notations formats for children and visionimpaired
readers. MPEG-4 SMR does not standardize one or more of these representations, but instead is an
extensible language allowing those representations and many more which share a common underlying
structure of music representation.
MPEG-4 SMR allows the synchronization of symbolic music elements with audiovisual events that existing
standardized MPEG technology can represent and render.
The SMR technology is composed of different tools, which normative descriptions are in Clauses 7 to 12.
- SMR Bitstream: the syntax and semantics of the SMR bitstream.
- Symbolic Music Extensible Format (SM-XF): the syntax and semantics of the SMR format.
- Symbolic Music Synchronization Information (SM-SI): the syntax and semantics of the
synchronisation Information between the SMR elements and the other audiovisual elements.
- Symbolic Music Formatting Language (SM-FL): the syntax and semantics of the rendering rules that
are applied to the SMR XML format for rendering.
- SMR Object Types for Profiles: the object types of SMR to be used for the definition of Profiles.